


where i'm going now, i don't know

by missparker



Category: Major Crimes (TV), The Closer
Genre: Depression, F/F, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 41,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missparker/pseuds/missparker
Summary: She has time to figure out what she wants to do, but not an endless supply of it. She keeps waiting for something to fall into her lap. For someone to come rescue her.





	1. one

_I'm here, I'm gone,_  
_I'm in love, I'm alone_  
_I'm good as gold_  
_And I'm bad to the bone_

**America - The Staves**

*

Charlie comes out for the funeral and then, three months later, moves out to California permanently. She tells her aunt that it isn’t because Fritz has died, that it’s not because the family is sending her out to watch over Brenda, but because she just really likes California.

“I just need a change,” Charlie says. “This is about me.”

Brenda doesn’t care about the reason, she’s just relieved and says, “Okay.” Brenda offers to fly out and drive back with her, but Charlie has a whole route planned out with stops to see friends along the way, and Brenda has done her fair share of road trips anyway, so she’s fine. Charlie is twenty-three now, perfectly able to make a trip like that alone.

She still adds Charlie to her Find Friends app and checks in on her progress now and then. There she is in Nashville, and then Oklahoma City, two days later, in Santa Fe. When she gets to Phoenix, she calls and says, “Wow, I really hate Arizona.”

“Yeah,” Brenda says, “Most people do.”

Charlie says she’ll arrive in LA tomorrow, they talk about what time she should leave to miss traffic and then Brenda hangs up and looks at her house in dismay. She’s been here only a month and a half but it looks like she could have moved in yesterday. She moved out of the duplex as soon as she could, not wanting anything to do with it after Fritz died and used the money from his life insurance to buy a two bedroom bungalow in her old neighborhood. She thought maybe she could start her life over again, make it more like when she’d first moved to LA. Just undo the last eight years.  
  
But Fritz had been the more domestic one, better at unpacking and putting together furniture and buying matching towels. She’d only gotten cozy in her first bungalow because she’d bought it furnished.  
  
She’d kept the couch and the kitchen table and chairs, but had gotten rid of everything in the guest room (where her mother died) and most of the furniture in her bedroom, too. She’d never liked the bed that Fritz had picked out, so now she has a boxspring on the floor with a mattress on top and boxes and boxes of clothes and linens. The kitchen is the most functional, by necessity.  
  
She’d meant to get things more ready for Charlie but the time had just slipped away from her. The days just bleed out and away.  
  
She’d taken a month of bereavement leave from the District Attorney’s office and then had decided, kind of on a whim, just not to go back. Part of her restart on her life. She wants to be the old Brenda, a different Brenda. Before she’d gotten married, before Philip Stroh, before Peter Goldman, before…  
  
Maybe not before Captain Raydor.  
  
She closes her eyes, shakes her head. She’s just not going to think about any of that anymore.  
  
It’s too much work to fix the house in one night, so she decides she’ll just do one or two boxes. The guest room is small, but it’s got a nice view of the yard and a decently sized closet for a house build in the 1930s. The room is half filled with boxes and a few odds and ends. The end table that doesn’t fit in the living room anymore, the leaf that goes into the dining table (that she’d forgotten about when she sold the table; what does one do with an orphaned leaf?), the desk and desk chair.  
  
She surveys the mess, chooses a small box only to find that it’s full of books. She has original built-ins in the living room, but they need painting so is it really worth it to unpack it at all? She pushes the box aside for the one behind it, slightly larger.  
  
When she pries the flaps apart, it’s full of towels and bedsheets. She doesn’t have room in the linen closet to put them away and half these sheets are for the bed she’s gotten rid of so… she huffs, pushes the hair away from her forehead with frustration.  
  
Nothing ever seems to work like it’s supposed to anymore.  
  
So she gives up. Turns off the light, tells herself she’ll tackle it in the morning. Takes a sleeve of ritz crackers and a tub of cheese spread to bed with her.  
  
oooo  
  
It takes Charlie three weeks to get a job bartending. She’d gone out to get a serving job, and if her mama or daddy asks, serving is what Brenda is supposed to tell them. Brenda doesn’t care if Charlie bartends, exactly. She knows the money is better, but she also doesn’t want her out of state niece working in a dive bar. People get murdered around seedy bars. Brenda would know.  
  
But Charlie tells her it’s at the Irish Pub, Casey’s, and Brenda knows that place.  
  
“That’s a cop bar,” she says.  
  
“Is it?” Charlie asks, not quite meeting her eye.  
  
In fact it is. It’s walkable from the PAB, not that anyone walks anywhere in this town, but it’s about as close to the PAB’s parking garage as headquarters is, and the part of the force that isn’t African-American or Hispanic is overwhelmingly Irish Catholic. Brenda has had more than her fair share of glasses of wine there, though it’s not her style, exactly. Provenza liked it well enough, and Andy before he quit drinking. That used to be his watering hole, she’d heard.  
  
“What could go wrong in a bar full of cops?” Charlie asks when Brenda only stares her down.  
  
“Maybe I’ll get a job there too,” Brenda says. She’s joking, but it comes out sour. She has time to figure out what she wants to do, but not an endless supply of it. She keeps waiting for something to fall into her lap. For someone to come rescue her.  
  
Charlie looks at her, hands on her hips.  
  
“Let’s go to Target,” she says, in lieu of a scolding.  
  
Brenda nods. Retail therapy always helps.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
She lets Charlie drive her, though they take Brenda’s car. Brenda has two, now. The little hybrid she’d bought a year into working for the D.A.s office and Fritz’s big black SUV that so far has sat in her one car garage untouched. It’s newer than Charlie’s Ford Fusion, though not as gas efficient.  
  
They’re sitting at a stop light when Brenda says, “Hey, do you want Uncle Fritz’s car?”  
  
Charlie glances over at her, alarmed. “What?”  
  
“It’s a 2015,” she says. “Real good condition. It’s just sitting there.”  
  
“I mean,” Charlie says. “I have a car.”  
  
“You could sell it,” Brenda says. “I could sell Fritz’s car too, I guess, but it seems like we should keep the thing with less miles.” She rubs her face. “I don’t know anythin’ about cars, really, besides that.”  
  
“Um,” Charlie says. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”  
  
Charlie had handled the guest room easily. The boxes and the furniture that had seemed insurmountable to Brenda, Charlie had cleared out or sorted within her first week. She’d gone to Ikea and bought a bed, three bookcases, a nightstand. Now the living room actually has all her books in it, organized by color.  
  
“For the ‘gram,” Charlie had said. They'd worry about paint later. Charlie had also managed to put some of the furniture out into the living room that Brenda just couldn’t make work somehow. In less than a month Charlie has managed to make the house seem lived in and on purpose.  
  
Brenda pushes the red cart, lagging behind her niece a little. Charlie has a list on her phone but tosses random things in the cart too. A candle that smells like a pina colada, a pink mug that says _Hello Gorgeous_ in a curly, rose gold font. A set of three wooden cutting boards.  
  
“The old place had ‘em built in,” Brenda says defensively, though Charlie hadn’t said anything about it one way or the other. She also buys a pack of 25 black velvet hangers and plastic laundry basket.  
  
Brenda has just been taking off her clothes in the teeny tiny laundry room and using the actual washing machine as her hamper. Charlie might think it’s pathetic, but she thinks it’s efficient.  
  
They go through the clothes section last, on the way to the registers. Charlie buys three pairs of the exact same black jeans and like ten black tank tops.  
  
“Jesus, who died?” Brenda blurts before she can think about it.  
  
Then she feels stupid and sad.  
  
Charlie had worn a dress to Fritz’s funeral anyway, and it was a dark, dark green. She remembers it because it was so pretty. A tiny bit of color in an otherwise very gray day. She remembers the green dress, she remembers the yellow flowers on the casket, she remembers red hair and that the lid came off one of her lipsticks and stained the lining of her purse and she’d had to throw that purse away. Then she’d started throwing other things away and then she’d decided just to move.  
  
“It’s for the bar,” Charlie mumbles. “Let’s go.”  
  
Back in the car, Brenda calls for a pizza and then when she hangs up, says, “How’d you even know about that pub?”  
  
“How does anyone know about anything?” Charlie asks.  
  
“Is that supposed to be rhetorical?” Brenda snaps.  
  
“It means the internet,” Charlie says. “If it bugs you so much, I don’t have to work there.”  
  
“It doesn’t bug me,” Brenda says. “I just momentarily forgot that this is the world’s tiniest town.”  
  
Charlie just rolls her eyes.  
  
Brenda eats pizza standing in the kitchen, Charlie is talking to her mama on her phone in her room but there’s not a lot of secrets in this house. The insulation isn’t great and Charlie’s door is open anyway.  
  
“I don’t know, I haven’t started yet,” Charlie is saying. Brenda can hear her opening another box - more clothes, probably.  
  
“It’s fine,” Charlie says now. “The house is really cute, and we’re getting all settled.”  
  
A pause.  
  
“Yeah,” Charlie says. “I mean, super depressed but wouldn’t you be?”  
  
Brenda dunks her crust into the container of ranch and it drips it down her shirt on the way to her mouth.  
  
“She just isn’t doing anything, I think if I can get her doing something, like anything at all, she’ll feel better. I don’t know, I haven’t been here that long yet.”  
  
Brenda realizes vaguely that Charlie is probably talking about her. Is she depressed? She looks down at the ranch on her shirt, the dirty kitchen, the half empty pizza box sitting on the empty pizza box from two days ago.  
  
She’s just lazy. She’s always been lazy, and now Fritz ain’t here to snap her out of it, that’s all.  
  
Fritz ain’t here because someone got into the PAB and shot him. And now he’s dead.  
  
And that’s all and she ain’t depressed and she’s doing fine and she can just start her life over. Here she is, fifty-one. A mess, just like she was at forty, just like she was at thirty-three, just like she was at seventeen.  
  
She wipes her face with the back of her hand, wipes her hands on the hem of her shirt and then takes it off to dump into the washing machine.  
Falls asleep in her bra and sweatpants, the fan in her bedroom squeaking as it spins.  
  
oooo  
  
Charlie is home during the day a lot, though often she’s sleeping. Often, Brenda is too, though. She tries to make herself leave the house at least once a day, though sometimes all she can manage is a walk around the block or to drive a few blocks away to the CVS to buy shampoo or razor blades or chocolate. At least the chocolate. The check out people there are starting to recognize her.  
  
She’s coming back into the house with a bag of snickers minis and an avocado face mask when she sees Charlie, watching the coffee pot brew in a pair of cotton shorts and a gray tank top, her hair in a messy bun on top of her head.  
  
“Hey sugar,” Brenda says, pushing up her sunglasses.  
  
“Morning,” Charlie says.  
  
“It’s one-thirty, but okay,” Brenda says. Charlie just yawns. Pulls a mug out of the top rack of the dishwasher. “How was work?”  
  
“Kinda slow,” Charlie says. “They still have me on the taps.” She’s the newest, so mostly she pours beer and wine and buses tables. She’ll have to work her way up to getting a cocktail shift. “You could come see it, you know.”  
  
“I’ve seen it,” Brenda reminds her.  
  
“Not with me behind the bar, though,” Charlie says. “I’ve come to see you at work before.”  
  
“You were sixteen!”  
  
“Still,” Charlie says. “You could come tonight. It’s Thursday, so it won’t be too crazy.”  
  
“Honey,” she says, suddenly tired and desperate to get out of doing anything ever again that isn’t eating snacks in soft pants.  
  
“Drinks on the house,” Charlie says. “We have that label you like. The Markham Vineyards one? From Napa?” The coffee machine beeps and Charlie turns to fix her cup, pouring a little almond milk into it and stirring in a yellow packet of sweetener. Takes a sip and says, “Oh my god, that’s amazing.”  
  
“I guess I could stop by,” Brenda says. “What time your shift start?”  
  
“4:30,” Charlie says.  
  
“Good,” Brenda says, biting at the ragged skin around her thumbnail. “Before the shift turnover. Maybe I won’t see anyone who knows me.”  
  
“Would that be so bad?” Charlie asks, wrapping both her hands around the mug. She’s wearing dark green nail polish, so dark it’s nearly black. It’s chipped on both thumbnails. When Brenda’s nail polish chips, it looks awful. On Charlie, it looks effortlessly cool.  
  
“I just don’t need it right now,” Brenda says.  
  
“I mean, it seems like you could use… and wouldn’t those people understand specifically… about uncle Fritz?”  
  
“About Fritz?” Brenda says. “Sure. But I’m not one of them anymore so…” She shakes her head. “I don’t expect you to understand.”  
  
Charlie drops it. Drinks her coffee, changes into workout clothes and goes for a run around the neighborhood. Comes back and showers and gets ready for work. She wears all black - usually skinny jeans and a black tank top or t-shirt. Today she has a black v-neck, the soft fabric so thin that Brenda can see the criss-cross straps of her sports bra through the material.  
  
Brenda used to be that young, once. That pretty and skinny and soft.  
  
Of course, when Brenda was that age, she was in grad school, in the middle of being recruited to the CIA. Waiting to pass her background checks. They would ultimately put her on a list, tell her to finish her degree and then try again. It had devastated her at the time, even though the extra language courses had been beneficial and had ended up fast tracking her.  
  
Looking back, now, she wishes they would have just told her no all together. Life could have been different. No CIA, no Atlanta PD, no LAPD. No Fritz. No heartbreak.  
  
Charlie sits on the floor of her bedroom at the base of her floor length mirror. She’s surrounded by makeup and Brenda sits on the edge of her bed and watches her buff foundation over her already perfect skin, then concealer, then powder and bronzer and blush. She makes winged eyeliner look easy, but Brenda knows it isn’t. She doesn’t bother to tell Charlie all that makeup isn’t necessary because she used to hate old people telling her that sort of thing.  
  
“What are you going to wear?” Charlie asks, searching through the makeup at her knee until she finds a fat pink tube of mascara.   
  
“I dunno,” Brenda says.  
  
“You’re going to shower?” Charlie asks.  
  
“I guess,” Brenda says.  
  
“And real clothes?”  
  
“Okay, hint received,” Brenda says.  
  
“I just think it’ll do you some good to leave this house,” Charlie says. “Talk to someone who isn’t me.”  
  
“You never said anything about talkin’ to strangers,” Brenda says and she means it as a joke but it doesn’t quite come out that way.  
  
“You’ll be fine,” Charlie says. “Okay, I gotta go. I will see you there.”  
  
She leans over, pecks her aunt on the cheek. Grabs her hoodie and her back and heads for the door. Calls, “Don’t forget to brush your hair,” as she leaves.  
  
Brenda does shower, but loses track of the time and it’s nearly five by the time she snaps out of it and gets her hair washed. She still manages to lie in her bed, wrapped in her towel for another fifteen minutes before groaning and putting on underwear. She manages jeans, though they feel weird, and her soft pink sweater. She doesn’t dry her hair, just runs some mousse through it and lets it dry up into waves.  
  
She doesn’t put on any makeup, she just can’t bring herself to do more than rub some moisturizer into her face. Her car is filthy inside, so she decides instead to take Fritz’s SUV. It also still has the PAB parking pass in it, so she can park in the garage.  
  
It still smells like him, a little, on the inside of the car but she decides to just drive through her tears. She’s determined to do just one thing right and that one thing is to not let Charlie down. Not to promise her something and then just let it fall through.  
  
But when she arrives, there is no hiding her red, swollen eyes. She wipes her cheeks with her sleeve, her nose with the bare back of her hand. Looks in the mirror and then decides she can’t care about any of it.  
  
She hasn’t been in this bar since before she left the force, so it’s been years but everything looks exactly the same. It’s not very full, but there are two people behind the bar. Neither of them are Charlie.  
  
She goes to the far end of the bar, where her back will mostly be against a wall. One of the bartenders comes over to her and says, “Can I get you something?”  
  
“Glass of merlot, whatever the house is will be fine,” she says. He looks at her, tilts his head.  
  
“Are you Charlie’s aunt?” he asks.  
  
She snaps her head up, looks at him. He’s tall, handsome, young.  
  
“Yeah,” she says.  
  
He grins, a row of perfectly white teeth. “I’ll tell her you’re here.”  
  
“How’d you know?” Brenda asks.  
  
“You look like her,” he says. “Merlot coming up.”  
  
Charlie comes out before the wine gets to her. She smiles at Brenda, a real smile, one that reaches her whole face. But when she gets closer, the smile falters.  
  
“You’re here,” Charlie says. “Are you okay?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Brenda says.  
  
“I was in the back cutting lemons and limes,” Charlie says. She holds up her hands. “Burns a little.”  
  
“Place looks the same,” Brenda says.  
  
“Are you sure you’re okay?”  
  
“Yes,” Brenda says. “I swear. Just tired.”  
  
“Do you want some food? The kitchen just opened. There’s happy hour stuff.”  
  
“I dunno,” Brenda says. She feels suddenly exhausted, like not only is she not gonna survive more time here, but she may not make it home in one piece.  
  
The other bartender comes back, sets a glass of wine in front of her.  
  
“Thank you, Mike,” Charlie says softly. Brenda sips it and it’s good, definitely not the house wine.  
  
“Maybe some nachos,” Brenda says.  
  
Charlie nods. “I can make that happen.”  
  
Brenda, alone once more, fishes around for her phone before realizing she left it in the center console of the SUV. Her purse offers not much by way of entertainment. It’s full of wrappers, crumpled receipts. She used to be the kind of person who at last carried around a paperback with her, even if it was a trashy novel of no literary merit, but she hasn’t been that kind of person since long before moving to LA. Maybe she should get a library card. Read something again. Hide out in someone else's problems for a while.  
  
The bar is starting to fill up now that it’s getting on quitting time. No one who comes in is in uniform, but she can tell which ones are cops and even vaguely recognizes a few of them, though is hard pressed to come up with any names. No one she _knows_. By the time her nachos come, a huge plate hot and heaping with chips and cheese and beans and sour cream and pico de gallo, the place is more full than empty. The stool next to her is still empty and the one after that, too, but then the rest of the bar, the actual bar top, is occupied.  
  
The cute bartender, Mike, brings her a refill without her having to ask.  
  
She feels better after she eats something, more herself, less on edge. The wine helps to dull things, too. And she doesn’t want to say that Charlie was right, exactly, but it feels nice to be out of her house and to have gone somewhere other than the drug store or the Ralphs.  
  
Charlie stops by again, brings her a little plastic ramekin of maraschino cherries. “Having fun?”  
  
Things have gotten loud now. There’s a digital jukebox installed on one of the walls, the one by the bathrooms, and people have been feeding it for awhile. A girl sings, _baby, take me to the feeling…_ and Brenda has to read lips as much as anything else to understand what is happening around her.  
  
“Good food,” Brenda says of the nachos. Nothing very Irish about nachos, but it is Los Angeles, after all. “Maybe it was good to get out.”  
  
“Make any friends?” Charlie asks, glancing past Brenda to the door.  
  
“Too old for all that,” Brenda says. “How about my bill?” Still, she pops a sweet, syrupy cherry into her mouth. It helps sooth the tingle from the jalapenos that had been hidden in the heart of her entrée.  
  
“Oh please,” Charlie says. “No charge.” She waves her hand in the air as if to illustrate that her aunt is being ridiculous. Then she looks at the door again.  
  
This time Brenda twists to look at the entrance as well, but no one is there.  
  
“I’ll get you a box,” Charlie offers.  
  
“I don’t need it,” Brenda says.  
  
“You have half a plate left,” Charlie says. “You can take that home.”  
  
“I may not want it later.”  
  
“So I’ll eat it,” Charlie says. “Stay right there. Don’t move.”  
  
Brenda gets a weird, familiar ping. It has to claw its way up through the fog, through whatever has settled over her. A heavy weave of apathy and sorrow. At first she just realizes something isn’t right. It takes her a few minutes to work out that it’s because Charlie is lying.  
  
She’s not sure about what - Brenda can see her getting the box across the room but her body language is definitely not right and she keeps looking at the door and at the computer where they ring in orders. Probably the clock.  
  
When Charlie comes back with the box, a flimsy beige cardboard thing that is obviously made of recycled material, she slides it across the bar. She looks past Brenda once again and then, just like that, her whole body language shifts into relief.  
  
Brenda turns, twists fast and hard on her stool and feels the twinge in her spine, but she’s gotta see what Charlie’s been hiding, what she is relieved to see now.  
  
Not a what, but a who.  
  
Brenda feels her chest constrict, feels heat crawl up the back of her neck and turns to look at at her niece. Her voice comes out as a furious whisper.  
  
“Charlene, what did you _do_?”  
  
Charlie looks immediately upset and unsettled. Shakes her head, says, “It’s… it’s a cop bar.”  
  
Brenda wants to hide her face, wants to slink off the stool and slither out a back door. But there’s not time for any of it, because it’s too late.  
  
Brenda hasn’t seen Sharon Raydor since the funeral, and before that, even longer. Since she left the force, probably. Brenda remembers the day of the funeral through a haze, but she remembers Sharon clear enough. Sharon in full uniform is hard to forget. Brenda remembers Sharon’s hand on her arm, just above her elbow. Telling her that she was sorry for her loss, for the loss of the force. And then Andy Flynn leading her away.  
  
The Sharon Raydor walking toward her now is not in her LAPD uniform, but it’s a uniform all the same. Black pencil skirt and a pale peach silk blouse. Black high heels, sleek hair and thick lashes behind the lens of her glasses. Her purse on her shoulder.  
  
She stops a few feet away, looks at Charlie and back to Brenda.  
  
“You didn’t tell her I was coming?”  
  
This is addressed directly to Charlie.  
  
“I thought… I… she wasn’t going to…”  
  
“Charlie!”  
  
Someone calls her from across the bar. She nods at them.  
  
“Sorry,” she says, and dashes away.  
  
“Well,” Sharon says, looking at her. “How are you doing?”  
  
“I…” Brenda feels the panic washing over her. “I have to go.”  
  
She grabs her coat, head for the door.  
  
“Wait a minute,” Sharon says, but Brenda ignores her, pushes through the door and out into the chilled night air. By the time she gets back to the SUV, she’s panting, feeling a little light headed.  
  
Inside still smells like Fritz and she starts to cry again.


	2. two

_Noontime wind can you blow_  
_For me one more time_  
_And take me on back to the start_  
_Where the midnight moon shines so bright_  
_Nearly pulled us up to Heaven_  
_By the strings of our heart_

**Josephine - Brandi Carlile**

*

Brenda wakes up, feels a little hungover. Not from the two glasses of wine, but from crying. She’d cried in the car, all the way home. Had cried in her bedroom, had cried herself to sleep. 

Now she feels numb and weird and out of sorts. Her face feels swollen and crusty. 

She blinks at the late morning light coming through the window - curtains are still on her list, especially now that spring is coming and the daylight lasts so long. She can hear birds squawking. She can hear noise from the kitchen. The air smells faintly of bacon.

She gets up, opens her door quietly, scooches herself into the bathroom, trying not to make a sound or attract any attention. But the pipes are old in this house and the toilet flushes loudly. The sink squeaks when she turns on the faucet to wash her hands and brush her teeth. Her face _is_ swollen, she notes as she stares dead-eyed at her own reflection. 

In the kitchen, Charlie is making a full breakfast. Johnsons always apologize with food. 

The bacon is finished, the eggs fluffy in the pan. Charlie stands at the oven stirring gravy. There must be biscuits in the oven.

Charlie’s hair is just above her shoulders now. The ends are blonde from an old dye job but most of it is light brown. She has the front pieces pinned out of her eyes. She’s in another pair of cotton shorts and a hooded sweatshirt. She looks like Bobby but her coloring is all Joyce. 

Charlie looks over her shoulder, back at the gravy.

“I hope you’re hungry,” she says. 

Brenda considers this - her niece and the spread and the late morning light. 

“I’m always hungry,” she says, her voice raspy. 

Charlie’s shoulders seem to relax.

Charlie has only just gotten here, really, and Brenda can’t stay mad at her forever. She’ll just have to… explain. 

They eat at the kitchen table, all the mail and other stuff pushed to one side so they have space. It’s good, Charlie was always a good cook. She was always the kind of girl who was good at whatever it was that she tried. Everyone was so concerned when she came out of college without a solid career but Brenda doesn’t worry about her. 

She’ll be a good bartender, if she gets another job, she’ll do well at that too. Even if she just finds someone rich to marry and pumps out a couple kids, she’ll be a darling at it, no doubt. 

“Listen,” Brenda says.

“No, I’m sorry,” Charlie interrupts. “I forced you to do too much to fast.” 

Brenda runs her fork through the pool of gravy on her plate. Watches it separate and congeal back together. “Honey, you don’t understand.”

“I mean, it was my idea so, I take full responsibility and I get it, people grieve in their own way and it takes the time it takes and I should just stay out of it,” Charlie says. “So I’m sorry.”

It takes an embarrassingly long amount of time for Brenda process what Charlie is saying. She’s already accepted the apology and reassured Charlie that things are fine, is stacking dishes in the already full sink when she thinks about it. Really thinks about it. 

“Charlie,” she says. “What do you mean it was your idea?”

“What?”

“You said it was your idea, what did you mean?” Brenda asks.

“To come out,” Charlie says. 

“And to see Captain Raydor?”

“I mean, it’s… it’s a cop bar,” she says. “You could have run into any number of people you knew, right?”

“But you were watching the door,” Brenda says. “You were waiting for Sharon Raydor.”

Charlie pours the remainder of the gravy in the pan into a plastic container and says nothing. 

“How even do you know her?” Brenda demands.

“Aunt Brenda, we met at the funeral, you know that,” Charlie says, pulling open one of the big drawers. She digs through it. “Does a lid for this even exist?”

“That funeral was months ago,” Brenda says.

Charlie digs some more and then pushes it closed. Opens the drawer above it and pulls out the roll of foil. 

“Charlie,” Brenda says again.

Charlie rips off some foil and covers the gravy. “She gave me her phone number at the funeral. Like, just in case I guess.” 

“In case of _what_?”

“I don't know!” Charlie says. “I didn’t think about it, really. Everyone was so sad and confused. Anyway, I forgot about it and then when you didn’t go back to work, she heard about that and texted me to see if you were okay.” 

“Jesus,” Brenda says, rubbing her face. 

“And then you know how it goes. You just like… keep talking or whatever. She’s nice.”

“Captain Raydor is not nice,” Brenda scoffs. 

“She seems to worry about you a lot,” Charlie says. “Very nicely, might I add.” 

“You can’t talk to her, Charlene, it ain’t right,” Brenda says. 

“Aunt Brenda,” Charlie says. “I don’t understand what you have against her.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Brenda says. She is mid storm out when she stops and says. “Casey’s is a cop bar.” 

Charlie bites her lip.

“She help you get that job?” 

Charlie nods. 

Brenda finishes her storm out. 

oooo

Brenda wishes that she had somewhere else to go. An alternate location in which to sulk. An office, a vacation house, somewhere someone would make her a cup of hot chocolate and let her complain for an hour. 

The irony is not lost on her - she needs a friend and needing a friend is what got her into this situation. Ha, ha, _ha_. But Sharon was never her friend. They certainly got less frosty toward one another toward the end, but they absolutely never moved beyond work colleagues and anyway, Brenda can’t be friends with her. Because there is something about that woman, that specific woman only, that makes her feel totally and completely unchained. Not herself. Not remotely in control of her own actions. If Brenda is a pile of dynamite, Sharon is a match burning brightly. 

And Brenda is in no position to catch fire, not now. 

She listens to Charlie shower and leave before she emerges from her room. She takes a bath, soaking in the hot, clear water for a long time. She even lights a candle and shuts the bathroom light off. By the time she yanks the plug out, it’s pretty dark and the flickering candle illuminates the steam swirling around her. She wraps up her hair in a towel and uses a second to dry off. Tucks that around her too. Rubs the mirror enough to see a watery reflection of herself. 

It occurs to her, just then, only then, that she could call Sharon. Tell her a thing or two. 

“Stay away from Charlie,” she says to herself in the mirror. Says it again, tries to sound more serious and stern. “Stay _away_ from Charlie.” 

She brushes her teeth and her hair. Puts on real clothes - a bra and clean underwear and a blush colored dress that is soft but has some structure so it doesn’t look like a sack on her. It has little cap sleeves, hits her at the knee. She even sits down at the little vanity in her room and smooths moisturizer into her skin. Pats some concealer under her eyes, darkens her lashes with mascara, puts on a nude lipstick, buffs some blush into her cheeks and looks more like herself than she’s felt in sometime. She spends a few minutes twisting the front pieces of her hair and pinning them back. 

Finally, feeling ready, she finds her bag and digs her phone out, only to find that it’s dead. She gets her charger from the bedroom and plugs it into the outlet in the kitchen, has to unplug the toaster to do so. People in the 1930s apparently did not believe in an excess of outlets. 

It takes awhile for the phone to charge up enough to turn on and then she has to scroll through and check everything she’d missed. Jimmy had called, had left her a voicemail scolding her for screening calls. A few texts - one from Bobby asking about Charlie’s birthday in May. Maybe the family could come to LA? And one from Charlie from the night before, asking her to come back to the bar. 

She opens up her contacts and scrolls down and down until she gets to the R part of the alphabet and then finds Sharon. She’s still in there and people don’t change their cell phone numbers, do they? Even when they change carriers. She remembers when Fritz got mad at AT&T and they went to Verizon and everything stayed the same for her.

She opens the contact info. There’s no picture, but there’s a cell and a work number which isn’t the Major Crimes number, but the FID one. She deletes that. She even has an address for Sharon, though she can’t think why… someone must have sent her the whole contact record. Flynn or Provenza or someone and all the information had come with it. They’d both known her for a long time, after all. 

She’s still looking at the number, screwing up the courage to touch it and make the call, when the screen changes and starts flashing Sharon’s name.

She’s confused for a moment. Had she hit something without realizing it? But after a few seconds it clicks that Sharon is just calling her. Coincidentally. 

Which freaks Brenda the fuck out. 

But she answers it with a terse, “Hello?” 

“ _Brenda_.” Sharon’s voice is low and soft and makes Brenda lean against the counter. 

“Hi,” she says, dumbly. Where is her rage? Her indignation? Sharon has taken her out at the knees by calling first. Which is so typically her.

“ _I just wanted to… reach out to you_ ,” Sharon says. “ _I hope you didn’t feel put on the spot last night._ ”

“Actually,” Brenda says. “Actually I was going to call you, if you can believe it.”

“ _Oh_?” Sharon says.

“Just now,” she says. “I don’t understand, Captain, why you’ve been talking to my niece.”

“ _Ah_ ,” Sharon says. “ _You know, Brenda, she was very concerned about you after your husband passed. We all were. I only offered myself as a resource, should she need it_.”

Brenda scoffs, taps her nails on the tile counter and says, “You have a real habit of taking everything that I have away from me. And anyway, you need to be careful with her. She’s just a girl.”

Sharon is quite for a moment, though Brenda can hear her breathe in sharply. Then she says, “ _I can see how from your perspective, that might feel true, but my only intentions were to be helpful. To her and to you_.” 

“Fine,” Brenda says. “Sure.” 

“ _I thought… it was nice to see you, you know_ ,” Sharon offers. “ _Maybe we could get dinner or a cup of coffee. Catch up_?”

Brenda rests her head down softly, pressing the warm skin of her forehead into the cold tile and says, “I don’t think that’d be a very good idea, Captain.” 

“ _I see_ ,” Sharon says. “ _Of course, I see_.”

“Just… be careful of Charlie and take care of that division, you hear?” Brenda says. 

“ _Brenda_ …”

“Bye now,” Brenda says. She ends the call. Sets the phone down. Opens the back door to stick her head out into the night air and takes a few deep, gulping breaths. That woman is no good for her, she reminds herself. No good at all. 

oooo

She dreams about Fritz and it’s not a good dream. He’s alive, he’s in his LAPD uniform and they’re in Major Crimes and she’s still a Deputy Chief. They’re just talking and then he grabs his stomach, looks at her in horror.

Pulls his hands away and they’re covered in blood.

“Why?” he asks her.

She looks down and she’s holding the gun.

It’s Charlie that shakes her awake.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Charlie says. Brenda is confused for a minute, because it’s dark and only the hall light is on. Charlie is just a shape in the darkness. “Just a bad dream,” Charlie says. 

“Okay,” Brenda says. “I’m okay.” She’s sweaty and nauseous and one of her legs is tangled in the old quilt she has on her bed. She pushes her hair back, sits up a little. “Sorry.” 

Charlie shakes her head. “You want to talk about it?”

“No,” Brenda says. She draws her knees up to her chest. “I don’t, uh, remember.” 

“Okay,” Charlie says.

“What time is it?”

“Three,” Charlie says. Brenda looks at her, realizes she still has her coat on, her makeup, that her purse is on the floor by Brenda’s bed. 

“You just get home? Honey?” Brenda asks.

“Yeah, I closed,” Charlie says. “I was just gonna… you want to put on a movie or something?”

“Yeah,” Brenda says. “Sure.”

She’s certainly not going to go back to sleep anytime soon.

So they relocate to the couch. Brenda brings her quilt. Charlie makes a bowl of popcorn in the microwave, salty sweet how Brenda likes it. They put the big bowl between them and cozy up under the blanket and Charlie scrolls through HBO until they settle on Nob Hill, already a third of the way in. 

Charlie looks tired, washed out in the cool light of the TV, her under eyes dark with smudged makeup. 

“You doing okay?” Brenda asks. “Are you liking it out here?”

Charlie glances at her. “Yeah, I like it. It’s different. I needed different.”

“You don’t get homesick?”

“No,” she says. “I think if I were alone, maybe, but I have you.” Charlie smiles. “I wish I could help you more, though.”

“I’m just gonna be sad for awhile, I think. That’s just the way it goes. I know it’s not much fun for you.”

“It’s okay,” Charlie promises. “I have Monday off. Maybe we could do something fun then? Get out? Go to the beach or something?”

Brenda nods. “It’s a date.” 

Charlie watches the screen for a few more minutes and then says, “Did you talk to Sharon?”

“What?”

“She said she’d call you,” Charlie says. “To apologize.” 

“We spoke,” Brenda says. “But we were never friends, you know. Not ever. And I don’t need her to be my friend now just because my husband is dead and she feels bad for stealing my job.”

Charlie presses her lips together hard, tucks her chin to her chest. 

“I really like Sharon,” Charlie says. “And I don’t know anyone out here, not really.”

“You know me, you know your friends from work…”

“It’s fine if you don’t like her, but it’s not your place to decide whether or not I can see her.” Charlie looks up when she’s said her piece. 

“Fine,” Brenda says. “Just leave me out of it.”

She turns back to the movie. Watches Julia Roberts with tired eyes until Charlie excuses herself and goes to bed. 

Brenda can’t go back to sleep. She watches TV until the sun comes up and then gets dressed, takes her purse, and drives to The Coffee Bean. She waits in the long line of people who are on their way to work and orders herself a sugary sweet drink that’s more chocolate than coffee. She drinks most of it sitting in the car, thinking about what to do next. She decides that she’s hungry, so she drives around until she finds somewhere serving breakfast. It’s a place she used to go with her squad after they’d been out all night at a crime scene and she’s forgotten about it, actually, until now.

So she goes in, sits at a booth all alone and orders a plate of french toast. She always liked this place because the syrup comes warm and mixes with the melting butter and it becomes a religious experience in her mouth. 

Her next stop is the library. She lies to the woman at the counter and says, yes, the address on her license is the current one and walks away with a library card for her sins. How would they know the difference and anyway, what possible consequences could there be? She wanders through the building, looks at the new books. There’s one about a CIA spy that she picks up, but the premise is so ridiculous that she sets it down again and leaves without checking anything out. She could write a book better than that. 

Because she’s full of caffeine and french toast, she decides to stop at the grocery store on the way home and buys a bunch of things - milk and creamer and butter and bread and eggs. The things normal people always have.

When she gets home, Charlie is awake and watches her carry in the first armload of groceries.

“Where were you?” Charlie asks.

“Just out runnin’ some errands,” Brenda says. “You can help me carry some bags.”

“You went grocery shopping?” Charlie asks and the note of amazement in her voice does sting a little. 

“Yes,” Brenda says, trying not to sound cross. She never sounds more like her mother than when she gets annoyed. She sounds so much like Willie Rae that even she can hear it in her own voice. 

“That’s awesome,” Charlie says and at least this seems genuine. With that she goes outside and brings in several bags. Brenda goes out one more time. All that’s left is a twelve pack of Coca-Cola, and so she grabs it and closes the back of the SUV one-handed, locks it up. She’s been driving Fritz’s SUV more and more, now. Charlie had declined to keep it, saying she liked her own, smaller car best. Brenda finds she likes it, actually, and can drive it now without weeping. In fact, the more she drives it, the more the smell of Fritz just fades away. And she likes riding up high - she feels safe, like she’s driving around a huge, black barricade. It makes leaving her house a little easier, anyway.

She never used to be scared to face the world. 

It’s not as cost efficient, she burns through gas a lot faster but… she’ll have to worry about that later. 

Charlie hangs out with her, unpacks the groceries. There’s so much more stuff than they're used to that they have to turn a different cupboard into pantry overflow for the three boxes of cereal she’d bought, and all the canned goods. 

“I guess if I want you to keep cooking for me, I thought we should probably have food.” 

Charlie nods. “That’s a good deal.” 

She finally gets tired, the sleepless night catching up to her, so she excuses herself to go lie down. By the time she wakes up again, the sun is setting and Charlie is gone.

She drinks a glass of wine in the backyard and watches the light disappear. 

oooo

On Monday, they drive to Santa Monica for fish tacos at Wahoo’s and then go to the pier. They mostly just people watch and dip into shops, though they don’t buy anything. Brenda offers to ride the carousel with Charlie, and the Ferris wheel and Charlie says no thank you to both. The weather is nice - a little breezy on the water, but Charlie is in denim shorts and a blue hoodie and her white sneakers. She doesn’t seem cold.

She says yes to the aquarium, though. Brenda happily forks over the ten dollars to let them in and the docent tells them they’re in luck, that the aquarium just switched over to the spring hours and are open to the public during weekdays. 

It’s a cute, if small and quaint attraction. Even the aquarium D.C. had been more impressive than this, and it didn’t even exist anymore. Charlie doesn’t seem phased by the quality or quantity of things to view. She likes the jellyfish the best and they stand and watch them for a long time, Charlie’s pretty face awash in the watery blue light. Charlie even bravely sticks her hands into the touch tank, though Brenda skips that. Slimy and cold is not her style.

“How far is it to the one in Monterey?” Charlie asks. “That’s supposed to be the best one, right?”

“Uh,” Brenda says. “Five or six hours, I think.”

“Really?” Charlie asks. “Why is this state so big?”

“We could go up for a couple days,” Brenda says. “No problem.” Charlie nods knowingly. They lean against the railing of the pier, look out over the water. 

“I do like it here,” she says.

“Good,” Brenda says. “I’d be sad if you left.” 

“I was actually thinking that in a year or so, I could go back to school.” Charlie says. “I’ll have been here long enough that I wouldn’t have to pay out of state tuition.”

“For what degree?” Brenda asks.

“I dunno,” Charlie says. “But I have time to decide I guess. I mean I have a sociology degree. I’m gonna have to get some sort of graduate degree if I ever want to stop working in food service.”

“What made you pick sociology in the first place?” Brenda asks.

“Honestly, I’d spent so long taking random classes trying to figure out what I wanted to do that it got to the point where I had to declare a major,” Charlie says, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I looked at all my credits and sociology was the thing I was closest to fulfilling.”

Brenda laughs.

“I dunno, Aunt Brenda,” Charlie says. “Everyone always… the family I mean… I look like you, I think, and so everyone always compared me to you. Because you were the only girl and so was I, but… you were always off doing something amazing. You always had a plan. I have never had a plan.” 

“Oh honey,” Brenda says. “I fly by the seat of my pants all the time, believe me.”

“Really?” Charlie asks.

“Really,” Brenda confirms. “And I certainly don’t have a plan now, do I?”

“Well, it’s different, you’re grieving.” 

“It can’t last forever, I know it,” Brenda says. “But it’s just so hard to… move forward.” She pulls Charlie closer to her, puts her arm around her shoulders. “We’re just going to have to help each other, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “Just start over. That’s why I came here. To start over.” 

That’s why anyone comes to Los Angeles, Brenda thinks. And she does wonder what was so bad that Charlie felt she had to leave it behind, but it feels like enough soul searching and it’s getting cold right here on the water. She can see Charlie’s bare legs are covered in goosebumps. 

“Let’s go get some ice cream,” Brenda says. “I think I saw a place back there.”

Charlie nods and they head back toward land. 

oooo

Brenda isn’t sure what makes her slide deeper down into herself again, but something that had been mending, well, it cracks and she finds that she care barely get out of bed. She sleeps through the light hours, waits until it’s dark before scavenging the kitchen for easy meals. Cold leftover pasta, the pizza from yesterday, three quarters of a box of cheese crackers. She sniffs the carton of leftover Chinese and then eats it cold in front of the sink.

Her pathetic reflection looks back at her, distorted by the old glass. Her real estate agent had called this place an original gem, had pointed out the wooden floor in pretty good condition, considering. The crown moulding, the brick patio in the backyard. 

But original charm had come with a low price tag for a reason and there were repairs to be made, including replacing all the windows, probably a new roof in the next few years, the electrical is all single circuit, the plumbing a disaster waiting to happen. 

“Don’t flush tampons,” is all Brenda had said when Charlie moved in. 

She’d bought the house anyway, eager to leave the duplex, eager for the old neighborhood at any cost. And now, when she drives home, it’s almost the exact same route from the freeway exit that she’d taken for years, except she turns two blocks sooner than the old house. 

She’s four days deep into this low swing she’s found herself in. She’s in dirty sweats and Charlie’s black hoodie with the white drawstrings. She slides her feet into pink flip flops and grabs her keys. It’s after one in the morning, but for some reason she feels like she needs to go out. She drives those two blocks and idles outside of her old house for a moment. The house is dark, of course, and there are two cars in the driveway. A white Hyundai and an old beat up Toyota pickup. She can’t remember who they sold the house to. Fritz had handled that and anyway, it could be totally different people here now. 

She closes her eyes, tries to picture the interior as it used to be. Does a mental walk through. Basks in the past for awhile. 

She drives around the neighborhood aimlessly, looking at the houses that are dark and those that have lights on or the flickering blue light of a television in the living room. 

And then she’s circled back around to the start and she realizes it’s been over an hour of creeping through her own neighborhood in her dead husband’s car. She parks in the driveway and sits in the dark car, the engine ticking. Charlie isn’t home yet, though she should be soon. She should go inside before it happens, she shouldn’t worry her niece anymore than possible, but she just can’t move yet. 

She’s still there, zoning out, trying to figure out if she even feels like a person anymore, if anything at all is real, when a car pulls up. Brenda drags her eyes up to the rearview mirror when she notices the headlights. It’s not Charlie’s car, it’s an older silver thing. It looks like something from the LAPD motor pool, boxy and unmarked but covered with antennas. It stops in front of the house, but doesn’t pull into the drive. The lights go off and the engine cuts.

Charlie gets out of the passenger’s side. 

This snaps Brenda right out of it and she throws open her door.

“Charlie?” she says.

“Jesus,” Charlie says, because Brenda has made her jump. “What are you doing out here?”

The driver’s door opens and then Sharon Raydor gets out.

“Sharon gave me a ride home,” Charlie says and she sounds pissed. Brenda can tell she’s been crying. 

“Where’s your car? Why didn’t you call me?” Brenda asks.

“I _did_ ,” Charlie hisses and then storms past her and goes inside. She slams the front door. 

Brenda reaches for her phone in her pocket but these sweats don’t have pockets. She tries to remember the last time she held her phone or even saw it at all. Shit. 

Sharon walks carefully toward Brenda, stops a few feet away and crosses her arms.

“I guess a brawl broke out at Casey’s,” Sharon says. “An off-duty officer shot off a round, hit one of the light fixtures above the bar and showered the bartending staff with glass.” 

“What?” Brenda demands. 

“Charlie is fine, but she’s shaken up. They gave everyone the day off while they repair the damage and FID showed up to evaluate the scene and the office who fire the shot.” Sharon gives her a wan smile. “She’ll be fine, Brenda.”

“Why did you report at two in the morning?” Brenda asks, confused. She rubs her face. She’s so, so tired.

Sharon looks perplexed for a moment and then concerned. “Charlie called me,” Sharon says gently. “I didn’t work the… you know I’m still with Major Crimes, right?”

Brenda nods. “Of course, right, yes, I know that, Captain.” Still. “Charlie called you?”

“It’s very late,” Sharon says in that same, low gentle voice. “I’m going to check on both of you tomorrow, okay?”

It’s a question, but she says it in a way that makes Brenda feel like she really doesn’t have a say in the matter. 

“I ain’t never see you in jeans before,” is the only thing Brenda can manage to say. 

“Brenda, what were you doing out here? In the driveway?” Sharon asks and now the concern far outweighs the gentleness. 

“I was just…” Brenda looks over at the SUV and she can’t remember exactly what she was doing in there, now. Waiting for something maybe. “I should go check on her.”

Sharon's car doesn’t pull away until Brenda is inside the house. Brenda knows this because she watches at the window, waits for the car to start, the lights to come on, the sound of the engine to fade into the night.

Charlie’s bedroom door is closed and space between the door and the wooden floor is dark. 

But in the morning, when Brenda gets up to use the toilet, she can see three tiny pieces of broken glass on the edge of the old washstand sink, catching the light.


	3. three

_Maybe we make a deal_   
_Maybe together we can get somewhere_   
_Anyplace is better_   
_Starting from zero got nothing to lose_

**Fast Car - Tracy Chapman**

*

Sharon makes good on her promise of coming back because she’s sitting at the kitchen table with Charlie when Brenda emerges from the bathroom and stumbles down the hall for coffee. Not that she has anything to get up for or any place to be, but once the smell wafts into her room, she’s gotta have it. Charlie always makes a full pot, anyway. 

Another Johnson trait. Never let the coffee pot run cold or dry. 

Brenda is in the same clothes as last night, minus her bra and her hair is pulled up into a bun on the top of her head that could only be described as ratty. 

Both Charlie and Sharon look up at her. 

“Um,” Brenda says, and turns right back around again.

When she reemerges for a second time, she has on clean underwear and black yoga pants instead of patterned pajama bottoms, and a fresh t-shirt. Her hair is her hair. 

“Did you get some rest?” Sharon asks. 

Brenda mumbles something - even she doesn’t really know what - and makes for the coffee. She knows they watch her while she does it, their beady little eyes burn her back. And when she turns around with her mug in both hands, there they are. Charlie looks a little frosty. Sharon just looks like Sharon. Glasses and dark lips and all that hair. 

“Well don’t you two make a pretty picture,” Brenda says and tonally, it lands somewhere between sarcasm and sugary sweet. She tries to smile but isn’t sure she succeeds. 

“Sit down,” Charlie says. 

Brenda sits - Sharon on her right and Charlie on her left. She swallows a mouthful of coffee and then sets the mug down. They all three have matching mugs because Charlie bought a fourset at Homegoods. Teal, with gold around the rim and down the handle. 

Charlie looks right at Brenda and says, “I’m not quitting my job.”

“No one asked you to,” Brenda says. “Certainly not me.” 

Charlie tilts her head. “Oh. Really?”

“Do you want to quit?” Brenda asks. 

“No,” Charlie says.

“Well then, case closed,” Brenda says. “You’re a grown woman and I ain’t your mama.” 

Sharon leans back, sips at her mug. 

“People die all the time,” Brenda says. She tilts her head at Sharon. “She knows it, too. At least you were somewhere help could come fast.” 

“The dude who fired the gun was drunk,” Charlie says. “I’d already cut him off.” 

“Beat cop?” Brenda asks Sharon who just nods once. “Yeah, they can be dumb meatheads.” 

“Well you both seem better by morning light,” Sharon says. She smiles at them, pushes her mug away. “I’ve got to get to work.”

“See you for dinner tomorrow?” Charlie says.

Sharon nods. “You too, Brenda,” she adds. “Rusty is down from Santa Cruz.” 

Brenda hasn’t forgotten about Rusty, exactly. She knows Sharon took him on when she took off for Atlanta, knows that she legally adopted him, but she hasn’t thought much about the poor boy since. 

“He goin’ to school?” she asks.

Sharon nods. “He’d love to see you,” she adds.

Brenda doesn’t say yes or no either way. When Sharon lets herself out, Charlie cleans up her mug and says, “I’d like it if you’d come with me. You spend too much time alone.”

Brenda wants to say that she can make her own friends, but that’s never been true. Every friend Brenda has ever had, has made her. 

So she just sighs and says, “Fine.” 

oooo

She does try to weasel out of it but Charlie just orders her into the shower. Charlie has already picked out her clothes when she gets back to her room; they’re lying on the bed. Charlie sits her down on a chair in the kitchen and brushes out her hair. Charlie spends twenty minutes braiding and pinning her long, shaggy hair up into milkmaid braids which even Brenda must admit are very fetching, if a little youthful for her. 

Charlie offers to do her makeup but Brenda says, “Stop fussin’ over me!” 

She can do her own makeup. She needs to buy new makeup maybe, as it all looks dirty and pathetic in her makeup bag. 

She’s starting to worry about money now, she can feel it tickling the back of her mind all the time. One of the cars needs to get sold, that’s her next plan. It’s just a matter of which one. 

“Come on,” Charlie says. “You ready?”

“I guess,” Brenda says. “Into the belly of the beast.”

“Oh my god, calm down,” Charlie says. “Sharon is nice and I’m starting to think the reason you couldn’t get along with her is you.” 

That does a little more than graze her, gets right up against the truth so Brenda says nothing. Just scrunches up her face and sticks out her tongue.

It’s just that Brenda is so good at the things she’s good at, people don’t understand how she’s not good at everything. Like solving murders and making friends are the exact same thing. Like the very thing that makes her good at the one isn’t absolutely causing the other. 

Charlie drives because she’s been to Sharon’s before, apparently. Brenda has never been to Sharon’s home before, had never had the occasion to visit before now. She remembers the first time Sharon came to the duplex - Brenda had shot Philip Stroh and destroyed her favorite purse and Sharon had come with FID to work the scene. 

Brenda had been happy to see her, frankly, and grateful. Sharon’s presence had been familiar and calming. Brenda had been too shaken up already to allow Sharon to shake her up even more. 

“Brenda?”

Brenda jerks, looks over at Charlie who is starring at her with some concern. The car is parked on the street. 

“Huh?” Brenda says. “We here?”

“Where’d you go?” Charlie asks.

“Sorry, I was just… that didn’t take long to get here,” Brenda says, searching for the handle to the door and opening it. She’s got bare legs, is wearing flats and a button up dress that Charlie had picked out for her at target. It’s got cap sleeves, tiny flowers printed on it. Charlie had called it trendy, said it would fit her slim frame. She hadn’t had the heart to tell her niece she’d been wearing the exact same thing twenty-five years ago, that everything that leaves comes back around again.

Sharon lives in a tall building, eleven floors up. Brenda doesn’t care for this kind of communal living, but she understands the benefits that go along with it. The security, the amenities. On the ground floor they pass the entrance to the pool, the sign for the gym. Charlie has to use an intercom to call up and they get buzzed in. 

In the elevator, Brenda starts to feel nauseous and then makes a solid effort to calm down. To push the feelings aside. She overshoots and by the time they reach Sharon’s door, she feels nothing at all. Feels like she’s watching herself walk into the condo, wave to Rusty, greet Sharon, decline an offer to hang up her sweater, she’ll keep it on for now, thanks. 

Dinner is tacos, lined up on the kitchen counter. They all make a plate and carry it to the dining table. Charlie and Rusty have met before, are chatty and friendly. Sharon sits with one leg tucked up underneath her and everyone drinks water with their meal. Brenda participates by eating her two tacos - one beef, one chicken - and answering questions that are asked to her directly. She listens to everyone, watches Sharon prompt Rusty into talking about himself. School in Santa Cruz, he’s majoring in Science Communication which after a few sentences, Brenda works out to be journalism, or what has become of the profession in the age of instant news and social media. 

Charlie asks a lot of questions about Santa Cruz. What’s it like, how far from here, did he like the campus, why did he choose it. 

“I wanted UCLA,” Sharon says, “but I was overruled.”

“I lived in LA my whole life,” Rusty says. “I just wanted to try someplace new.”

“A different California beach town,” Brenda says, before she can help it. Rusty stares at her, Charlie shakes her head into her plate. Brenda deflects her rudeness by standing, taking her plate and carrying it into the kitchen. They all must recover, because conversation carries on and soon Sharon comes in carrying more dishes. 

“Can I help?” Brenda asks.

“Sure,” Sharon says. They work together to put away the leftovers and then Brenda rinses the dishes and Sharon loads them into the dishwasher. When she opens it, it’s perfectly empty. Brenda would expect nothing less. “I’m glad you came tonight,” Sharon says, when she closes the dishwasher and rehangs the tea towel on the handle. 

Brenda just nods, turns to look at the refrigerator. Rusty’s senior picture, a ticket stub from an Avengers movie, a few magnets doing nothing but holding themselves against the metal. Brenda tries to think what’s on her own fridge and it’s nothing, she concludes. She doesn’t even know where small things like magnets might be. Maybe they were thrown away in her great purge. 

Sharon touches her arm and Brenda nearly leaps out of her skin. “What?” she says, rubbing her arm where Sharon’s hand had made contact.

“I said do you want dessert,” Sharon says. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Um,” Brenda says. “Yes, sure. Can I use your bathroom?”

“Down the hall,” Sharon says. 

When Brenda comes out of the restroom - tasteful white tile, marble countertops, beige towels, she can hear the kids talking in the living room. She pauses in the hall, out of sight of everyone.

“I guess… _Never Going Back Again_?” Charlie says. 

“Fleetwood Mac is a respectable choice, though not what I would choose,” Rusty says. 

“If you say Stairway to Heaven, I’m gonna barf,” Charlie says.

“Whoa,” Rusty says. “I wasn’t, but that is a solid song.”

Charlie rolls her eyes.

“I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted, Bruce Springsteen’s _I’m On Fire_.” He nods. “Yeah.”

“That song is fine,” Charlie says. “Kind of short.”

“Quality over quantity,” he says. He glances at Brenda, who has slipped back into the room and settled herself quietly in an armchair. “Right?”

“I have only the vaguest notion of what you’re talking about,” she confesses. 

“Aunt Brenda drives around in her car in silence,” Charlie says. “No radio, no itunes, no CDs, nothing.” 

“That’s grim,” Rusty says. Sharon finally emerges from the kitchen.

“Mom, what’s better, _I’m On Fire_ or _Never Going Back Again_ for greatest song of all time?” Rusty asks. 

“Um,” Sharon says. “ _Fast Car_ is still my favorite so…”

Charlie says, “Oh damn!”

“Fuck!” Rusty says. “We forgot about _Fast Car_.”

“Don’t swear please,” she says. 

“Jesus, that’s such a good song,” he says, ignoring her. 

“There’s pie,” Sharon says. “Peach, in honor of our guests.” 

Brenda wants to be irritated but she really likes peach pie. It’s not exactly the season for it, but the pie isn’t homemade, Brenda can see the fancy box on the counter and it tastes good, no matter what page of the calendar they’re on. The kids talk more about music - Rusty has a guitar but doesn’t know how to play and Charlie can play, but left her guitar back in Atlanta.

So Rusty gets the guitar and Charlie sits tuning it while Sharon cleans up the dessert things and Brenda walks around the living area, inspecting things. Table lamps, throw blankets, a dusty fake plant. The only place dust has managed to flourish from what Brenda can tell. She’s inspecting Sharon’s dark red wall full of ballet themed art, listening to Charlie pluck out a melody and hum along to it when Sharon comes over to her.

“This wasn’t so bad,” Sharon says. 

“I guess not,” Brenda concedes. 

“You know, Brenda, Chief Howard’s benefits also entitle you to grief counseling.”

Sharon says this matter of factly, staring up at a print of ballet shoes. She turns to look at Brenda who has said nothing, who can only stare at Sharon slack-jawed with surprise. 

“I think you should take advantage of that,” Sharon says. 

“It’s not… I’m not… it’s only been…” she sputters.

“I’m not passing judgement,” Sharon says. “I myself am a great fan of therapy, whether it’s for a traumatic incident or general maintenance.”

Brenda crosses her arms, tucks them tight against her body. 

“I know it’s only been six months,” Sharon says, sounding more gentle now. “You deserve to take as much time as you need but if the LAPD is willing to pay for something, you ought not to let that go to waste. Think of it as wringing Will Pope for every penny he wants to keep in his deep, dusty pockets.” 

Brenda finds herself nodding. That’s a sales pitch she can get behind.

“I’m sure they sent you the paperwork but I know you’ve recently moved, so I’m going to have them send it to you again, okay?”

“Okay,” Brenda says. 

“I’ll have someone follow up,” Sharon says. “Now, it’s been a long night for you I’m sure and if you want to leave, I won’t be offended.” 

“Kickin’ us out, just like that?” Brenda says. “You’re like a drive by shootin’, Sharon.” 

“No, you can stay another four hours for all I care,” Sharon says. “But I’m setting you free.” Sharon winks and then calls over her shoulder, “Charlie, I think your aunt is fading fast.” 

“Yeah, we should probably get going,” Charlie says, standing, setting the guitar gently down on the sofa in her place. “Thanks Sharon, this was fun.”

“We’ll do it again,” Sharon promises, giving Charlie a hug. Rusty waves, but doesn’t touch anyone. Brenda gets out the door without contact of any kind. 

In the car, Brenda thinks Sharon’s offer through. 

“Do you think I need therapy?” Brenda asks. Charlie reaches slowly, turns down the volume of her music, a long black cord connecting her phone to the car stereo. 

“I absolutely think you need therapy,” Charlie says. “Especially if it’s free.” 

“Tell me what you really think. Jesus.”

“Do you think you’re doing particularly well?” Charlie asks. “Sleeping all day, eating like crap, not working?”

Brenda says nothing.

“As long as I’ve known you, you’ve been a workaholic,” Charlie says. “It concerns me that something that used to be a huge part of your life seems to hold no interest for you now.”

“I hated the District Attorney’s office,” Brenda says churlishly.

“Okay great, so do something else,” Charlie says. 

“What?” Brenda says. “What would I do?”

“You know who would be great at helping you decide?” Charlie says.

“Don’t say Sharon.”

“Sharon,” Charlie says anyway. “Who has been trying to be your friend for like six years.”

“Why?” Brenda demands. “What’s in it for her?”

Charlie just shakes her head. “Like, that’s not the point,” she says tiredly. 

“When we first met-”

“When you first met she surely reacted to the way you treated her,” Charlie says. “Let it go. Get to know her now.”

Brenda slumps in her seat, mutters under her breath, “Who made you captain of her fan club?”

Charlie turns the music back up and drives in silence. 

oooo

Brenda knows she’s being childish and she knows she needs some kind of something to help her move out of this rut, so when a big white envelope comes in the mail with her name on it and a return address of the LAPD, she opens it. She flips through it all quickly, looking for a note from Sharon or any trace of her but generic information is all there is - a form letter, some legalese, a glossy brochure. 

She fills out the form that came along with everything, and the insurance paperwork. She’s gotten real good at insurance paperwork. 

Calling to set up the initial appointment seems a daunting, insurmountable task and it takes her three days of pacing the house to drum up the courage. When she does it, she’s been sitting on the floor by the front window in a warm patch of afternoon sunlight, watching the clock click closer and closer to five, when the office closes. 

Finally at 4:56, she makes the call, her heart racing and feeling sweaty. She hopes no one answers, but someone does.

She gives her name, tells them she is interested in booking a session.

“I have paperwork… uh, my husband’s work is supposed to pay for it. Because… well he died. It’s the least they can do right?” she says.

The receptionist is so kind and nice. They set a date. Brenda makes a note of the stuff she’s supposed to bring and she jots it down on the back of an envelope. It’s two weeks away which feels both like an eternity and way, way too close. When she hangs up, she lies back on the wooden floor and takes a deep breath. 

God this floor is dirty. The baseboards are scuffed and whoever last repainted the trim in this room didn’t bother to do the underside of the windowsill. 

Maybe when therapy magically fixes her and she gets a job, she can just hire painters.

“Ha,” she says into the sunny, empty room.

She stays on the floors until her hips start to ache and the sun gets so low she’s no longer in a warm patch of light. She gets up with a few creaky joints, brushes herself off. Wanders off to run a bath.

oooo

She wears work clothes to her appointment, though she doesn’t know what she’s trying to prove exactly. Maybe that she’s not grieving - or that she’s not grieving too much or incorrectly. That she’s a functional person. 

In the parking lot, looking up at the building, she gets hot and nauseous. Starts to cry. Realizes that she can’t go in.

She calls Charlie, but it goes right to voicemail.

Having no other choice, no other friends and no other family who would come close to understanding, she calls the only person left.

“Brenda?” Sharon says.

“I-I-I can’t,” she manages. She’s crying enough that it’s hard to breathe.

“Brenda!” Sharon says. “What’s wrong, what’s happened?”

“I can’t d-do it,” she says. “I can’t go in there. I can’t.” 

“Go in where?” Sharon says.

Brenda just cries, presses the heel of her hand into her left eye and it comes back wet and streaked with mascara.

“Can’t go into the grief counselor?” Sharon says after a bit of a pause. 

Brenda nods. Realizes she’s stupid. “I’m not ready.”

“I don’t think anyone is,” Sharon says. “It’s always hard. It’s fine to be scared.”

“You don’t understand, I physically can’t,” she says. “I can’t, Sharon.” 

“Okay,” Sharon says. “Okay, where are you?”

“What?”

“Which office are you at? Which Doctor?”

“Sharon…”

“Come on, which one?” Sharon insists.

“Dr. Barrett,” she says. 

“I will be there in ten minutes,” Sharon says.

“I’m already gonna be late.”

“I’ll put sirens on. Stay there. You’re going to be okay. I’m on my way, okay?”

“Okay,” Brenda says feeling small and dumb.

Sharon arrives in seven minutes; Brenda is still crying. Now because she feels anxious about being late and guilty for calling Sharon and stupid because she can’t figure out how to do anything by herself anymore. 

Someone is driving Sharon because the lights cut off as they pull into the parking lot and Sharon gets out of the passenger’s seat. Brenda can’t see who it is, but it looks like a woman from far away through tears. 

Brenda unlocks the doors, Sharon gets into her passenger’s seat, setting Brenda’s purse on the floor by her feet.

“Hi,” she says. “Oh, Brenda.”

“I’m so stupid,” Brenda says, swiping at her face. Her makeup is wrecked beyond all repair. 

“You’re not,” Sharon says. “You are, infuriatingly, one of the most intelligent people I have ever met.”

“I can’t even… do this one thing,” Brenda says, fresh tears welling up. 

“Yes you can,” Sharon says. “The hardest part is going inside and so we’re just going to do that together.”

“You don’t gotta-”

“I’m going to walk in with you, I’m going to wait with you, and if you want I’ll even do the session with you.” Sharon gives her a sympathetic smile. “You aren’t alone.” 

Brenda hates that Sharon is so nice and pretty and her voice makes Brenda want to jump off of a bridge. 

“Okay,” Brenda says. “Okay. Okay.” Her hands are shaking as she pulls the keys out of the ignition. She’s in the SUV again. 

“Let’s go,” Sharon says, picking up Brenda’s purse and slinging it over her own shoulder.

The unmarked car that Sharon had arrived in has been idling nearby and now pulls into a parking spot. Brenda can hear whoever is driving it cut the engine as she opens her car door. She feels so foolish, but having Sharon there with her is weirdly fortifying. 

So in they go. 

Inside is cool and she can feel the air move across her damp cheeks. The receptionist smiles as they come in. 

“I’m so late,” Brenda says in a small voice. 

“That’s just fine, sweetheart,” the receptionist says. She moves forward when she feels Sharon’s hand on her back, the gentle pressure. 

“I’m Brenda Johnson,” she says. 

The receptionist hands her a clipboard and Sharon takes it so Brenda can take her purse.

“I just need your insurance information,” she says. While Brenda manages the paperwork, Sharon sits down with the clipboard and starts filling it in. She’s half done when Brenda sits next to her. 

“Are you feeling better?” Sharon murmurs, glancing up at her.

“Um,” Brenda says. 

“You aren’t so red and your breathing is better,” Sharon says. 

“I guess.” 

Sharon slides her the clipboard. The only things left blank are her social security number and some questions that require full sentences. Sharon has her address, even her birthday down. Brenda has no earthly idea when Sharon’s birthday is. 

She fills in her social security number, looks at the questions through squinty eyes. 

“Where are your glasses?” Sharon asks. 

“I dunno,” Brenda admits. “Couldn’t find them this morning.”

Sharon taps the clipboard and says, “Number one. Do you find your grief is interfering with your life?”

Brenda snorts and just writes yes. 

“Next is asking if you feel cut off from other people,” Sharon says. Brenda rolls her eyes and skips to the third question. Sharon dutifully says, “Are there things you used to like to do that you now avoid?”

“This is stupid,” Brenda says. She just writes DEAD HUSBAND across the last two questions and hands Sharon the clipboard back. Sharon smiles, small like she’s trying not to, and returns the clipboard to the receptionist. 

It doesn’t take long for someone to come out and say, “Brenda?”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Sharon asks. 

“No,” Brenda says, though a tiny bit of her does. But she knows she won’t answer things honestly with Sharon there. She’ll try to impress her or try to say what she thinks Sharon would want to hear. Anyway, the hard part was getting here. Now that she’s in the middle of it, it’s hard to remember exactly what she thought was going to be so bad. “You should go back to work. I mean, thank you, but you’ve done… more than enough. Jesus, I can’t believe I called you.”

The lines by Sharon’s eyes shift, deepen as her eyes narrow. “You’re welcome,” she says carefully.

Brenda turns back to the woman waiting for her, follows her into the room.

Her name is Veronica Barrett, she’s been doing this a long time, she just wants Brenda to be comfortable. This is a test run, to make sure they are compatible. There weren’t very many doctors on the list that the LAPD sent to her and this one was by far closest to her house, so she’s determined to make it work.

“It says here you recently lost your husband,” Dr. Barrett says. 

“Six months ago, well… almost seven now, I guess,” she says. “He was a police officer. He died at work.” 

“I see,” she says.

“He was murdered,” Brenda says. “Right in the middle of headquarters.”

“That must have been terribly devastating, I’m very sorry for your loss,” Dr. Barrett says. 

“I was a cop, too,” Brenda says. “I understand… the dangers of the job but… also, I guess I didn’t, really.” 

Brenda shrugs. 

Dr. Barrett wants to talk about goals with Brenda, what she hopes to get out of the sessions. Brenda tells her about Charlie, about leaving her job, about the little house and how she just kind of haunts it full time now. About how she doesn’t really have any hobbies, any goals, or any friends anymore.

“Who was with you in the waiting room?” Dr. Barrett asks. 

“Sharon?” Brenda asks. “Oh, we aren’t friends.” 

“No?” asks Dr. Barrett. “Why not?”

“We used to work together,” Brenda says. “Our professional relationship was somewhat strained at the start and… then when it wasn’t so bad, I left that job.” 

“So what’s stopping you from being friends now?” Dr. Barrett asks. “Two female law enforcement officials of a similar age. Seems like that’s a pretty good place to start a friendship from.”

“She’s Charlie’s friend now,” Brenda says, only slightly bitter.

“Your niece?” 

“Yeah, they made friends at the funeral I guess. Weird, right?” Brenda asks. 

Dr. Barrett cocks her head, takes a moment to think about it. “Unusual maybe, but not strange, I’d say. Well if she’s not your friend, then why did she come with you today? Was it in an official liaison capacity?”

“No,” Brenda says. “I just… I wasn’t sure who to call and I was having some… trouble in the parking lot.” 

“What sort of trouble?” Dr. Barrett asks. 

“Just coming in seemed very… impossible. Sometimes doin’ stuff that seems real easy is so hard these days.” 

Dr. Barrett writes something down and then says, “So you called Sharon who is definitely not your friend and she came in the middle of the work day?”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Brenda says. 

Dr. Barrett just smiles and says, “I’d like to see you again, Brenda. If you’re okay with that, Kathy will schedule you another appointment on your way out.”

“Sure, okay,” Brenda says. She feels like they barely talked about anything at all, but it’s been forty-five minutes according to the clock on the wall. They only talked about Fritz a little tiny bit. 

Brenda leaves through another door and finds herself on the opposite side of the reception window. Kathy swivels her chair around. 

“She says schedule another one,” Brenda says. 

“Great! What works for you, when are you free?” she says. 

“I’m literally always free,” Brenda says with a self-deprecating laugh. She looks through to the waiting room and it’s hard to see a clean view but it seems like Sharon isn’t there. Good. She shouldn’t hang around on Brenda’s behalf. 

“Then how about this same day and time,” Kathy says.

The insurance covers a set number of sessions, it’s up to Brenda if she wants to come every week and spend them fast, or draw them out a little. She decides on an appointment for two weeks from now and books it.

When she opens the door to outside, the sun is bright and she squints, bringing her hand up to her face to shield her eyes.

“How’d it go?”

She leaps practically out of her goddamn skin. 

Sharon is sitting on the small retaining wall next to the door, waiting for her. 

“I thought you _left_ ,” Brenda says, sounding cross mostly because her heart is pounding.

“I told you I wouldn’t,” she says reasonably. “Also, I sent Amy back to work so you have to give me a ride.” 

Brenda puts her purse on her shoulder. It’s hard to feel put out, really, because she did call Sharon. She did that. It had seemed, in that moment, the only thing she could do, though now it seems… ridiculous.

Sharon’s hair is glossy and dynamic and dark and she pushes it off one shoulder as she stands. She dusts off the seat of her dark slacks. 

“You want to talk about it?” Sharon asks as they walk back to the SUV.

“I dunno,” Brenda says. “I’m goin’ back in two weeks, so it went okay I guess.” 

“Did you like her?” Sharon asks. “That’s a two way street in therapy. You get to screen her, too.”

Brenda shrugs. “I don’t feel anything about anything anymore,” she says. She glances at Sharon. “Unless I’m havin’ a panic attack, I mean.”

“Right,” Sharon says dryly. She looks at her watch. “Let’s go to Starbucks first.” 

“I’ve eaten so much of your day up,” Brenda says.

“I’m the boss,” Sharon says. “It’s fine. What’s Will Pope going to do, fire me?”

Brenda snorts.

“I’d be so lucky. Set me free, Pope.”

“I thought you liked Major Crimes, I thought you were gettin’ on well. It’s been what, three years?”

“I do like Major Crimes,” Sharon says. “But I do not feel so warmly toward the whole of the LAPD.”

Brenda thinks, well, that’s any job, but says nothing. 

There’s a Starbucks just down the street - there always is in LA - but they go through the drive-thru. Sharon gets a nonfat latte. Brenda gets a chocolate Frappuccino and Sharon pays. Brenda lets her, feeling wrung out. 

“Thank you,” Brenda says while they’re idling at a light, a few blocks from the PAB. “You didn’t… have to do any of this.”

“Brenda,” Sharon says. “I think about our time working together and there’s so much I should’ve done differently. I feel like we were just starting to figure things out and then you left the force. I think we could be friends, I’d like for that to happen. You don’t always get a second chance with people, I don’t think we should let it pass us by and now Rusty’s gone and I work _all_ the time and it’s hard for me too, you know, to meet people and be able to stand them and then have them understand about my schedule and-”

“Jesus, Sharon, fine! Fine!” she says. “You win! You win!” 

The light changes, Brenda accelerates.

“Charlie likes me,” Sharon says softly. “Isn’t that worth anything?”

“Yes,” Brenda says. “It’s fine, let’s be friends. Best friends.”

Sharon snorts and then they both laugh.

It feels okay, actually. Laughter.

She drops Sharon off and she says, “I’ll call you.” And then disappears into the building where Brenda used to spend nearly every waking hour of her life. 

She heads home.


	4. four

_Sometimes there's a danger of choking on the parts_  
_No one gave a warning to the breaking of your heart_  
_Pick up all the pieces and go back to the start_  
_Never losing, only using all your moving parts_

**Moving Parts - Trixie Mattel**

*

One of the things Dr. Barrett had asked her to do was plan something for every day. Nothing giant, just one thing she had to complete a day. Maybe it was do the dishes. Maybe it was remembering to drag the garbage to the curb or go grocery shopping or even see a movie.

Today is library day. The one closest to her house is also close to a school and is two stories, big, intimidating. But there’s a smaller branch she remembers because it was right by the turn off for a crime scene and she always looked at it as David drove by and thought that the building looked friendly. She decides to go there today, checks her purse twice to make sure she has the unused library card in it. 

When she gets there, the library isn’t open yet. It’s still ten minutes to ten on a weekday morning. She parks, kills the engine in the SUV, and digs her phone out of her purse. 

Brings up the stilted text thread she has going with Sharon, now that they’re friends. Brenda thinks the word with big air quotes around it. She needs to figure a few things out, like how to spend time with Sharon without constantly getting distracted by her hair, her pretty clothes, her skin.

It’s so weird how she can miss Fritz so fiercely and yet still think about Sharon, the history they have, the way she made Brenda feel from the very first moment she saw her. Sharon creates a buzzing just under Brenda’s skin that she’d at first thought was annoyance. Well, it was, a little. Annoyance and insecurity and resentment. But once those things started to fade away, there was always that buzzing, that heat, like she was filled with angry bees that made her fingers itch, made her skin sweat, made her vision swim just a teeny tiny bit. 

Brenda doesn’t want to be Sharon’s friend because she does want it, badly, and historically… things Brenda want always seem to come back and bite her in the ass anyway. She’d wanted to get away from her parents, so she’d married her first husband. That had been a spectacular backfire. She’d wanted get out of Atlanta so she moved to LA to work for someone she used to sleep with. She’d wanted to feel anchored in LA, so she’d married Fritz. 

She’s determined, at least, not to float from place to place anymore. Fritz had been an anchor, good and bad. Now she’s been in LA ten years, or near about. That’s a long stretch for her. She has a house, she has too many cars, she has family, and now, a friend.

She sends Sharon a text asking if she has any reading recommendations for someone who hasn’t read a piece of fiction for the last ten years. 

It only takes a few seconds for Sharon to respond, _You think I have time to read?_

Brenda knows she doesn’t, but if anyone could spin free time out of nothing, it’d be Sharon.

When the double doors of the library swish open, she heads inside. She’s not the only one waiting - she moves in with a group of people. Half of them move toward a bank of computers. Everyone with a stroller goes toward the big room in the other direction. Brenda just looks around, already overwhelmed.

Her assignment is to do something and she’s done it, technically. No one said she had to actually check anything out.

A bright orange sign catches her eye. New books.

It’s a much smaller collection than at the first library she visited and it feels manageable. She decides to judge the books by their covers and picks up something that looks not too girly but not too grisly. It turns out to be historical fiction and she decides good enough, looks around. There’s no one waiting at the desk and the machines that tell her she can check herself out look complex, so she approaches the real live human staring at a computer screen. 

She seems barely older than Charlie, but she looks up and says, “Checking out?”

“Yeah,” Brenda says. She slides the book across. The woman pecks at her keyboard and then looks up at Brenda expectantly. “Oh!” she says. “You probably want my library card.”

“It does help to move things along,” the woman says with a smile. Brenda has to set down her purse, dig for her wallet and then pull the card out. The woman scans it and then squints at the screen for a moment before taking the book and waving it over a dark square on the desk. 

A receipt pops out.

“Due in three weeks on the 14th,” she says. “And if you want to return it to another branch, one closer to home, that’s fine.”

Brenda smiles, says nervously, “I haven’t actually used a library in years.” 

“That’s okay,” the woman says. “Welcome back.”

Her anxiety eases a little as she takes her book and exits, stepping into the bright sun. Even if she doesn’t read it, she feels like she did a good thing. Interacted with a person, left the house. Didn’t give up, didn’t cry in the car.

In the SUV, she takes a picture of the book and sends it to Sharon rather impulsively. 

Sharon doesn’t respond right away again, so Brenda drives on home.

oooo

Charlie has a date, a friend of someone she works with. 

“It’s like, not a big deal,” she says. 

“It’s great,” Brenda says. “I think it’s great.”

“I can cancel,” Charlie says. 

“Don’t you dare,” Brenda says. “I’m fine and you’ve been doing nothing but working and looking after me. You deserve to be taken out. Where you goin’?”

“A movie I think,” Charlie says. “I guess food, too.” 

Charlie wears the dress that Brenda wore to Sharon’s condo because it fits her too, fits her better and they swap clothes all the time now, washing everything in tangled loads and pulling from the same basket of clean things that sits in the hallway between their bedroom doors. They’re more like sisters, than aunt and niece. Or mother and daughter, but Brenda isn’t the one who is the mom. 

“Text me if you’re going to be out super late,” Brenda says, because that seems like the thing to say when Charlie is leaving.

“Okay,” Charlie says.

“And… you know. Use protection?” Brenda offers.

“Jesus Christ,” Charlie says. “Stop.” 

And off she goes. 

She’s not been gone fifteen minutes when Sharon calls her and says, “If I have chocolate cake, will you let me come over?”

Brenda grips the phone a little harder and says, “Charlie ain’t even here.”

“I know,” Sharon says. 

Brenda looks around the house. It’s not up to Sharon’s standard of clean. It’s not even up to Brenda’s standard of clean and that is, generally, a low bar. 

“Since we’re friends now,” Sharon tacks on. Brenda knows she’s teasing.

“You can’t judge me,” Brenda says. “You can’t judge the state of this house.”

“I would never,” Sharon says solemnly. 

“Yeah, whenever then,” Brenda says and hangs up. 

She’s still in sweats and a t-shirt, so she changes into real jeans and a different, cleaner t-shirt. Then she walks around and gathers up everything that is actually just trash. Mail and food wrappers and used tissues and balled up receipts. Then she lights a candle, the one that smells like the beach that Charlie likes to keep on the coffee table. 

She’s standing in the kitchen looking at that mess when Sharon knocks once and then just lets herself in. 

_Friends_ , Brenda reminds herself. 

Her mama used to have friends like this. Women who’d just pop over with a pie, especially when her daddy had just gone off on deployment. Brenda looks Sharon up and down, at the pink box in her hands and then just falls back on doing what her mother did.

She takes the sweet gift and starts a pot of weak coffee. Now that Sharon is here, she isn’t sure exactly what’s supposed to happen. It’s early for cake - Brenda hasn’t even eaten dinner yet, but she still cuts two big wedges and puts them on mismatched plates. They sit at the kitchen table with cake and coffee.

Brenda says, “How are the guys?”

“Good,” Sharon says. “I… we don’t have to talk about work.”

It’s a relief, actually. Just the vaguest notion of employment makes Brenda’s anxiety spike to nauseating levels, she doesn’t know if she could bear talking directly about what she’d used to have. So she nods, shovels cake into her mouth. It’s so sweet her whole face aches with it. The feeling soothes her. 

“Charlie says you’re planning on painting?” Sharon says looking around. 

Brenda shrugs one shoulder, says, “The built-ins need it the most. They’re all scuffed up.” 

Sharon drags her fork through a smear of icing on her little plate. “Brenda,” she says, sounding unsure now. Unlike herself. That cool, calm quality to her voice has changed into something wobbly.

“What?” Brenda says. 

“I need you to know something,” Sharon says. “If we’re going to be spending time with each other, I feel like I have to tell you this. And it may change things and you may decide that you don’t want to see me again afterward and that’s certainly your choice but it feels dishonest not to tell you.” Sharon is looking at her own hands. 

Brenda feels the bees begin to hum under her skin, wonders briefly if Sharon has bees too, if she’d always had bees and this weird magnetic pull that Brenda feels isn’t so out of the blue and one sided as it seemed. Is Sharon confused and frustrated and way out of her depth too?

“Okay,” Brenda says. 

“Brenda,” Sharon says. “I saw your husband die.”

Well. Not bees. 

She’d demanded to read the incident report and Will had let her, against everyone’s better judgement. Had she just been a widow and not an ex-cop, he wouldn’t have handed it over so readily. She remembers thinking it strange that most people were named but one officer was cited only by badge number.

Turns out that was Sharon, who’d inisited on it because she knew Brenda would want to see the report and that Will Pope would let her. 

Brenda feels strangely calm about it all. Disconnected. She feels like she’s watching herself for most of the evening. She sees herself reach out to hold Sharon’s hand and say, “That must have been so terrible for you.” 

Sharon’s wet, surprised eyes look up. 

“You didn’t need to tell me,” Brenda assures her, her voice so far away from her own ears. “I’m not mad. I wouldn’t have been mad, I mean, if I’d figured it out on my own.” 

Sharon nods, swallowing again and again. Brenda knows what it looks like when someone is trying not to cry. “Okay,” she says. 

“If anything I should be mad at… I don’t know,” she says. “Myself? Him? The shooter?”

“God?” Sharon offers.

“Yeah,” Brenda says. “Fuck that guy.”

Sharon barks out surprised laughter and Brenda feels the warm, distant prickle of satisfaction. 

“It was awfully unfair, what happened to you and to Chief Howard,” Sharon says. “You had a marriage that I found enviable.” 

Brenda is an amateur revisionist historian herself but even she can’t pretend that her marriage was all sunshine and roses. 

“It wasn’t,” Brenda admits. “It was a marriage. It was hard.” She shakes her head. “I was a handful at the best of time.” 

Sharon reaches out and touches her hand softly. The contact makes Brenda jump, she knocks into her fork and it clatters from the plate to the table and the whole exchange is awkward. 

“How many people have you seen die?” Brenda asks. 

That questions is awkward too, but Brenda has to know for some reason.

“Oh,” Sharon says softly. “More than one.” 

“Sharon,” Brenda says after a stretch of silence.

“Hmm?”

“I’m not really… I don’t know what to do,” Brenda says. “I’m not sure what comes next.” 

Sharon nods. “I know, honey.” 

oooo

After that it’s hard to be mad at Sharon so she stops. It’s hard to hate her, so she doesn’t. It’s hard to begrudge her friendship with Charlie, so she supports it instead. 

“Have Sharon over if you want,” Brenda says, when Charlie suggests having a girls night. Watching movies, ordering in. 

“Really?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah,” Brenda says. “Why not?”

“Well,” Charlie says. “It’s a Thursday. She might be busy.”

“She might be,” Brenda says. “Doesn’t hurt to ask.” 

“Okay,” Charlie says, shrugging. “I’ll ask.” 

Charlie has an app on her phone that lets them order whatever they want and some poor soul will drive all over town and pick it all up and deliver it right to their door. Brenda says she wants a hamburger, Charlie wants ramen. 

“Sharon says she ate, but she’ll come later. Start the movie without her.” Charlie shrugs. “I think she’s been on a rough case.”

“They’re all rough after you been doin’ it a while,” Brenda says. “There are some police departments that rotate detectives out of their homicide divisions, you know? Before it starts to wear them down.” 

“Do you think that’s better?”

“No,” Brenda says. “It means no one specializes. It means rookies work every case. It’s better for the cops, but not the public.”

“How do you decide?” Charlie asks. “How do you pick between doing what’s best for the public or for your employees?”

“You always choose the public,” Brenda says. “And if you don’t, it comes back to bite ya.”

“And what happens if the job makes you sick?” Charlie asks. She doesn’t quite look at Brenda as she asks it, instead fusses at a candle she’s lit on the coffee table, turning it slightly so the label faces forward, square with the edge of the table. The ceramic bottom scrapes against the wood of the table, not quite smooth.

“You leave,” Brenda says. “Or they make you.” 

When Sharon arrives, they’ve already eaten their food and they’re forty-five minutes into a superhero movie that Brenda doesn’t care if they finish. She can’t follow the plot because she hasn’t seen the four movies that came before to set up the flimsy premise of this one. Charlie has tried to explain as they go but finally Brenda has set her free of that particular chore. 

Brenda is in the kitchen when Sharon arrives having said, “No, no, don’t pause it, I’m just going to open some wine.” 

And she had. Now she’s drinking it alone, sitting at the table, looking at the open door of the dryer where they’ve been pulling underwear out from all week. Underwear is the easiest thing to put away. It’s light, tiny. She can carry it all in one armful and dump it into a drawer without folding it, it would take a minute and yet they haven’t done it, neither one of them and it’s been backing up the laundry all week. 

So she does it, pulls the underwear and tangled bras out.

Of course, that’s when Sharon comes in with a light courtesy knock. The front door is right between the living room and the kitchen so she walks in, looks at Charlie watching TV and then turns to see Brenda standing in the kitchen with an arm full of unmentionables. 

“Hey,” Brenda says. 

“Hi,” says Sharon. 

Brenda doesn’t even dump them in the drawer. Just drops them on her bed, shaking her head at herself for her terrible sense of timing. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror Charlie had hung over the desk where all her makeup sits and she winces. She’s got dark circles, no makeup, roots filled with gray. She looks skinny and hard. All the pretty drained away. 

Sharon’s got on a tan trench coat, a camel colored pencil skirt, a white striped blouse. Navy heels. Her curls have fallen somewhat. She dumps her purse and jacket on an empty chair, pushes her glasses up onto her head and rubs the place on her nose where they sit.

“Can I have some wine?” she asks when Brenda’s whole body comes around the corner, not just her head.

“Sure,” Brenda says. The only thing clean is a stemless wine glass, something Charlie had bought for the backyard after a disaster with one of the nicer stemmed ones. She fills it halfway and hands it to Sharon who has settled herself on the edge of the couch. Sharon reaches for it without opening her eyes but her eyes snap open when she feels it. She makes a funny expression but doesn’t say anything, and so neither does Brenda, who sits in a chair even though there’s a whole cushion between Charlie and Sharon.

“You hungry?” Brenda asks. 

“No,” Sharon says. “Thank you.” She takes a sip of the wine and then carefully toes of her high heels, mindful not to scuff the back of the first one. 

“We can watch something else,” Charlie says, turning off the movie. “I don’t think she was real invested.”

“I was not,” Brenda says. “Sorry.”

“What do you want to watch?” Charlie asks Sharon.

She shakes her head. “I don’t care, sweetie.” 

“Let’s, um,” Brenda says, feeling out of her depth a little. “Let’s connect your phone to the speaker and put on some music instead. Maybe we can do something else? Play a game?”

Both Charlie and Sharon turn to stare at her in surprise. Possibly like she’s grown a second head, been kidnapped recently and the Brenda speaking to them is the clone.

“I’m just sick of the TV.” Brenda shrugs. 

“Do you have games?” Sharon asks. 

“There’s a box in the garage, I think.” Brenda says. “Fritz had a nice dominoes set that I didn’t give away. Some playing cards and poker chips. Stuff like that.” 

“I’ll go look,” Charlie says. 

There’s no access from the house, so Charlie has to go out the front door, which she does. 

“You okay?” Brenda asks when she’s gone.

“I’m just…” Sharon chuckles. “There was this case a few months ago and Pope knew the guy and knew he was probably guilty and we knew he was guilty and we had words about it. Can’t go easy on your buddies, Chief, that’s not how justice works.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve had that very same fight with him,” Brenda says, clutching at the arms of her chair. 

“Now this guy has lawyered up and Pope keeps sticking his nose into the DA’s office trying to I don’t even know what… and they’re coming to me questioning whether _my_ case is going to hold up because _my_ sleazy boss is trying to throw his weight around. It makes me look bad, it makes my department look bad, it makes the LAPD look like a disaster, which frankly, it is.” 

“If the Chief of Police has a parade of sleazy friends he’s gotta continually cover up for, then yeah, it probably is,” Brenda says. “I’m sorry. That must be exhausting.” 

“If it was just the job, if it was just the murder and the families and the… the horror, you know, that would be one thing, but it’s this shit that really wears you down.” Sharon picks up her wine glass from the coffee table and takes a big swig.

“You didn't… um, have to come over. If you’re tired. I just… you can go and I’ll make excuses, if you want.” 

Sharon looks up. “I’m glad to be here, Brenda. It’s a nice reprieve.” 

“Oh,” she says. “Okay.”

“I know you understand,” Sharon says. “That’s really nice, actually.” 

The front door opens with a bang and Charlie stands triumphant holding a black leather case.

“Dominoes!” she announces. “Everything else in that box I didn’t understand or looked like it was for professional gambling.”

“Dominoes it is,” Sharon says.

It’s been a long time since Brenda has sat at a table and played a game. Charlie puts pretzels into a bowl and has to scrounge around for paper and pen to keep score. Then they google the rules because everyone remembers how to play slightly differently. They settle on the Mexican Train version, and then they have to find something to be their trains. Sharon goes to her purse, brings back her wallet. A cream colored Michael Kors number with a rose gold zipper. She unzips it and then unzips a smaller pouch inside before producing three pennies. 

Brenda snorts. “You don’t have any quarters in there for us Sharon? Sacagaweas? Gold doubloons?”

“I’ll be expecting those back,” is all she says. But Brenda is pretty sure she winks at Charlie as she sets her wallet on the kitchen counter, out of the way. 

Charlie’s music is not really what Brenda would have picked, but it’s not bad. She doesn’t know any of the songs - she never knows any songs - but they melt gently into the background and serve to fill up the little house and the candle from the living room wafts into kitchen and it’s all okay for a little while. Cozy and warm and Charlie wins at dominoes and that seems right, too. 

oooo

Brenda is getting ready for therapy. Well, she’s sitting on her bed in a t-shirt and underwear, thinking about how maybe she’ll just skip therapy when that soft little knock sounds that Brenda is starting to recognize and then the sound of the knob turning.

“You guys should think about locking your door!” Sharon calls. 

“What are you doing here?” Brenda yells back. “I ain’t decent.”

“I’m taking you to your appointment,” Sharon says. “I cleared it with Charlie.”

“Charlie isn’t my secretary,” Brenda says. “You can just talk to me you know.” She looks around her room but the problem from a minute ago hasn’t solved itself. Nothing to wear.

“Would you have said yes?” Sharon askes.

Brenda shrugs, not that Sharon can see it. Probably not. It was embarrassing enough the first time. When Brenda doesn’t answer, Sharon comes down the hall and looks into the bedroom. 

“We’re going to be late, why aren’t you dressed?”

“Come on in, I guess,” she says sarcastically. “I don’t know, everything fits weird.” 

“Well you eat like garbage,” Sharon says. “And you never leave this house.” 

“Wow, thank you.” 

“Sorry,” Sharon says. “I’m not saying you look fat because you obviously don’t. If anything you look skinnier, but it’s not healthy is all I’m trying to say.”

“Yeah, I understood,” Brenda says. 

Sharon sighs, moves farther down the hall to Charlie’s room. Comes back in a few moments with a pair of folded jeans. She knows those jeans - light wash, rips in the knees. 

“I don’t know-”

“Put them on, it’s fine. It’s just an appointment, you don’t have to impress anyone.” Sharon tosses them on the bed and doesn’t turn around. Crosses her arms and waits with her pretty purse on her arm and her hair clipped back. 

“We used to have boundaries,” Brenda mutters, shaking out the jeans and stepping into them. They’re tight too, but because they’re supposed to be. She gets her toe caught in the rip in the knee and has to be careful not to fall which is more difficult while Sharon watches. “You look like a Banana Republic advertisement.” 

“Thank you,” Sharon says. 

“No, I mean-”

“Come on,” she says. “Where’s your purse?”

“Why are you doin’ this?” Brenda asks when they’re in the car.

“It’s fine, it’s all arranged. It doesn’t impact my schedule much and if I have a crime scene, well, we can navigate that, but you know how I like to delegate.” Sharon glances into her side mirror and changes lanes.

“That wasn’t at all an answer to my question,” Brenda points out. 

“I feel better doing it,” Sharon says.

“Because you saw Fritz die.”

“Because I know it’s difficult for you and because we’re friends and yeah, because I feel a little responsible,” Sharon admits.

“You aren’t _responsible_ , Jesus,” Brenda says. “Maybe you need therapy.”

“I get therapy, Brenda,” she says.

“What?”

“I have a very stressful, dangerous job that is incredibly emotionally draining, a foster son, an alcoholic ex-husband, and I recently saw a colleague murdered. I get regular therapy.” She glances over. “Did you work in Major Crimes for seven years and not go to therapy? Ever?”

“I’m going now, ain’t I?” she asks.

“I guess that’s something,” Sharon acknowledges.

oooo

They talk through her homework, she and Dr. Barrett and then Brenda finds herself talking mostly about Sharon again, about how she’d hated her and then how she’d tolerated her and then how she’d sort of needed her and then how she has found herself in this place of kind of wanting her around, now. 

“Friends,” Dr. Barrett says chuckling. “You’re friends.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Brenda says, rubbing her face. “She brings me to these appointments because she feels bad that she saw my husband die and I didn’t.”

“Why would she have wanted you to see your own husband die?” Dr. Barrett asks. 

“Not that… she feels bad that she was on the inside,” Brenda says. “That’s all. And I was out.”

When Brenda gets outside, Sharon’s sitting on that little wall again, this time holding Starbucks for them both. Brenda’s drink is a dark, chocolatey thing topped with whipped cream and a fudge drizzle. Barely coffee at all, really. 

“Thank you,” she says, accepting it. 

“You’re welcome,” Sharon says.

She taps her plastic cup to Brenda’s cup before they head back to the car.


	5. five

_We can do anything if we put our minds to it_  
_Take your whole life then you put a line through it_  
_My love is yours if you're willing to take it_  
_Give me your heart 'cause I ain't gonna break it_

**Eastside - Benny Blanco**

*

Charlie goes home to Atlanta for not quite a week. Five days, six with travel. She’s missed her birthday, she couldn’t get that off, so Brenda had taken her to a nice a dinner and Sharon and Rusty had met them at another place after for dessert. Sharon had paid for that. 

And Brenda’s fine with Charlie leaving because people have to go home, from time to time. They’d talked about Bobby and Joyce coming out to LA but Charlie had said, “Maybe it’s not the right time for guests.” 

That had stung, a little, even though she’d been right to say it. Because Brenda is getting better. Just by virtue of time passing, distancing her from Fritz’s death and now she’s in therapy and she’s even made a friend. Or remade one. Or made an acquaintance into something different. 

Whatever the hell Sharon is. 

So it’s good for Charlie to go home and see her parents and maybe it’s good for Brenda, too, to have the house to herself again. 

She even drives Charlie to the airport with her rolling suitcase and her backpack. Drops her off in the departures terminal with the promise to pick her up again. 

“I’ll text you,” Charlie promises. “Call me if you need me.”

“I’m fine,” Brenda says more than once. “It’s one week, I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about little old me.” 

When she gets home the house does seem quiet and empty and dark, even though it’s only mid-morning. She has to pull her phone out of her purse to check what day it is and finds that it’s a Thursday. Not that it matters. She remembers her mama saying happily, “Everyday is Saturday when you’re retired!”

Maybe she can get serious about her finances this week. Figure out how to get some money coming in. Who will take her, after all this. At least figure out what’s out there for her. Some options at the very least.

But this line of thought gives her a headache and so she puts it off for one more day and goes to bed, waits for the pain to pass.

oooo

Sharon calls her on Friday. Brenda is eating lunch in the backyard because her therapist says she can’t stay inside for the whole entire day anymore so sometimes she sits out in the sunshine in the back so she can get through her next appointment with a clear conscience. Yes she did leave the house today!

“It’s been one day,” she says, instead of hello. 

“Huh?” Sharon says. 

“Charlie’s only been gone one day, you think I can’t make it one day?” Brenda says.

“Listen, I don’t have time for any of that,” Sharon says. “We can do that later. Are you still trying to sell your car?”

“Oh,” Brenda says. She’s only a teeny, tiny bit put out Sharon isn’t calling just to check up on her. Not that she needs it, it’s only been one day! “Yeah, I suppose I’ve got to.”

“Which one - the SUV or the hybrid?”

“I don’t know,” she says, rubbing her temple. Now the sunshine she was just enjoying feels too warm and the turkey sandwich turns heavy in her stomach. She pushes her plate away. “I don’t think I’ve decided.”

“Okay, well, how would you feel about selling one to Lieutenant Sanchez?” Sharon asks.

“Julio wants to buy my car?” Brenda says.

“He needs one, I know you’re selling one. I thought maybe I could broker a deal,” she says.

“Does he know what he wants?” she asks.

“I think he’d probably take either, frankly, if it means a friendly face and not having to deal with a dealership or craigslist,” Sharon says. “How would you feel if I brought him by after work?”

“Today?” Brenda asks.

“Yeah,” Sharon says. Brenda can tell she’s a little distracted, she can hear people in the background. Someone says something and it sounds like Mike Tao. 

“Okay,” Brenda says. “Sure, I guess.” 

“Great, we’ll see you then. Bye.” 

And Sharon just hangs up. Brenda pulls her phone away from her ear and looks at it. Catches it just in time to see Sharon’s name blink away and then her home screen reappears. 

The hybrid stays parked in the garage now. They’d cleaned it out just enough to get it in there, but any time they need anything from the garage they have to edge around the car and it’s a pain. But for the most part, it’s clean because she never drives it. 

She abandons her lunch things in the backyard and walks around the side, through the gate to the garage. The house is old and so is the neighborhood. A lot of her neighbors still have garages with old, manual garage doors that need to be lifted and unlocked with a key, but Brenda’s has been updated. She can key in the code to open it and she does. There’s just enough room to open the driver’s side door and slip in. It’d be smarter, maybe, to move the SUV to the street and back the car out, but that seems like so much work so she just turns on the dome light and looks around. 

There’s the clip on holder for her cell phone, so she takes that off. Still a parking permit decal for the DA’s office, she uses her thumbnail to pick at the corner of it until it comes free and then she peels it away. The little pocket in the door has some candy wrappers in it, she pockets those.

She keeps saying she’s not sure, but she can’t give up the SUV. She can’t sell that last part of Fritz like she’d so quickly shed the rest of their life. Maybe this car is more economically smart, but she doesn’t feel as safe in it, so… if Julio wants a car, it’s gotta be this one.

She makes a mental note to tell Dr. Barrett that she’d made a decision. Maybe not the best one, but a firm one. Ain’t that something?

She should move the car out so Julio can look at it. Park Charlie’s car on the street and move the SUV over, pull the hybrid out. That makes the most sense.

But she has hours to do it. She’ll do it later.

oooo

Sharon wakes her up, crouched next to the couch, her hand on Brenda’s shoulder. Her brow is furrowed in concern and she looks strange to Brenda, other wordly. Her eyes are so green, her skin is perfect.

“You okay?” she asks. 

“Huh?” Brenda mumbles. “Sharon?”

“Come on, sit up,” she says. “You’re warm, did you know that?”

Brenda isn’t sure what’s happening. 

“You have a fever, Brenda,” Sharon says. “Sit up, I’ll get you some water.” 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Brenda says, sitting up and rubbing her face. It’s then she realizes that there’s someone else in the living room. Julio, standing by the door, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. “Shit, the car.”

“Hiya Chief,” he says. “Sorry to… sorry.”

“I just lost track of time,” she says, and swings her feet to the floor. Sharon is already in the kitchen, down the hall, making noise as she moves merrily around the little house like she’s been here a hundred times before. She comes back with ice water and a bottle of Advil. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well?”

It’s such a stupid question that Brenda ignores it. But she does understand why Sharon looks different. 

No glasses. 

She takes a single pill and sips it down with some water and then wipes her hands on her sweatpants. Realizes she’s still in what she slept in last night.

“Okay, uh, I’m just gonna go change and then… y’all just have a seat,” she says and leaves them staring after her as she scoots down the hall to her room. 

She hasn’t even brushed her teeth today. So, not great.

She puts on new underwear, a bra. A pair of purple leggings, a black t-shirt. Realizes she hasn’t showered in at least two or three days, so she puts deodorant on under the shirt, probably gets it all over but oh well. Then she slips into the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth and just generally look at the state of herself. How bad is it, what did they see?

Her hair is a mess, but that’s a given. And she is a little flushed. It’s hard to tell if she is feverish, if she does feel bad because she always feels bad, so she can’t always parse what’s emotional turmoil and what’s physical. 

She brushes her teeth, splashes water on her face. Pulls back her greasy hair. She’ll shower when they leave. She will. 

Sharon has made a pot of coffee when she comes out and she and Julio are sitting at the kitchen table with mugs in front of them. 

“It’s nice to see you, Julio,” Brenda says, when she reemerges, slightly more human. “How you doin’?”

“I’m fine, ma’am,” he says.

“Oh, I’m just… Brenda now.” She smiles, it’s effort. 

“Are you hungry?” Sharon asks. “You want to order in? We could have something to eat and then do this car stuff.”

Julio looks alarmed and Brenda just shakes her head. “Stop fussin’,” she says. 

“Okay,” Sharon says. 

“Julio, I don’t know what… she’s told you but I don’t think I can part with Fritz’s car yet so, um-”

“Oh that’s okay,” he says nervously. “I would… I don’t…”

“You okay with a hybrid?” she asks.

“I’ll take a look, yeah,” he says. 

Sharon reaches to her feet where her purse sits and pulls out a folder. “I took the liberty of looking up Kelley Blue Book prices for both your cars, Brenda.” She opens the folder and leafs through some pages, pulls out duplicates of the information on the hybrid and slides Brenda and Julio each a copy.

“Wow,” says Brenda.

“You’ll see the average figures, some figures with mileage variations, and what I think is a fair price if Julio pays you a cash lump sum versus monthly payments.”

“If you’re okay with payments,” Julio says. 

“Yeah, whatever is fine,” she says. “Do you want to look at it before we do all this? You may not even want it.” 

“Sure,” he says. Sharon makes a weird expression, looks over at Julio and then lifts one shoulder. 

“The keys are… over here,” she says. All her keys are sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Charlie’s too. “I’m gonna move the SUV and then we can pull the hybrid out of the garage, okay?”

“Here,” Sharon says, reaching for the keys. “I’ll do it.” 

Brenda is perfectly capable of moving cars, but it feels so much easier to hand it over to Sharon, so she does. They all file out of the house and she and Julio stand on the little porch and watch Sharon back the SUV out of the driveway. Sharon’s car is parked in front of the house, so she has to drive down to the end of the block and turn around and then park it across the street.

“Open the garage, Brenda,” she says when she gets to the driveway.

“Right,” Brenda says and hops to it. She should take the keys and back it out herself but Sharon just marches into the garage. They can hear the hybrid beep and then it backs out quietly. 

“It’s gray,” Julio says.

“Yeah.”

“I just thought it’d be… something else.” He looks at her. “Pink or something.”

She elbows him, rolls her eyes and he grins. 

“That’s a little much, even for me,” she says. 

Sharon gets out of the car, leaves the keys inside of it, sitting in the cup holder.

“Want to go for a drive?” Brenda asks. 

“How about I drive us all to dinner,” he says. “I know a place that makes a good chimichanga.” 

“Yeah?” she says. 

“You up for it, ma’am?” Julio says to Sharon. “Dinner out? On me?” 

“Of course,” she says. 

So Brenda has to put on shoes. She pulls on a zip up hoodie, gray. Her hair is her hair and there’s no time for makeup, but who does she have to impress? She rides in the backseat, behind Sharon. It’s a good twenty minute drive - Julio says he likes how quiet the ride is. There’s not many miles on it because she hasn’t really had it for that long and has spent most of the last year not driving it. 

“How’s your mom, Julio?” Brenda asks. 

Julio doesn’t say anything for a moment and finally Sharon is the one to say, “Julio lost his mother last month, Brenda.” 

“Oh,” she says. “I’m so… so sorry.” 

“Thank you,” he says softly. 

It kills the conversation, anyway, but Sharon does reach behind her seat and pat Brenda on the knee. 

oooo

Julio buys the car. They agree on a year of payments, he leaves her with the first check. She pries the key off her key ring and the one off of Charlie’s keys too, not that she ever drove it either. 

“Don’t be a stranger,” he says to her before he drives away. 

Sharon doesn’t leave right away. She’s slow to pack up her paperwork, slip the folder back into her purse.

“You don’t have to go,” Brenda says when she realizes that Sharon maybe doesn’t want to leave. “No sense you going back to an empty house, too.”

“You don’t mind?” Sharon asks. 

“No,” Brenda says. “I just thought you were tired.” 

“I am tired,” she says. “But I can be tired here, too.”

“There’s ice cream, I think,” Brenda says, opening the freezer. A package of chicken thighs that surely needs to be tossed and some empty ice trays. “Maybe I ate that.” 

“I’m stuffed from dinner anyway,” Sharon says.

“Do you want something else to wear?” Brenda asks. “Something more comfortable?”

Sharon looks down at her outfit - a sheath dress and a coordinating blazer. Her black heels and nylons, too. 

“We could watch something. Veg on the couch,” she says. “Light a candle, really go wild.”

Sharon smiles, Brenda feels something in her chest swell. 

“Sure,” she says. “Comfy. I can do that.” 

Of course, now Brenda is obligated to find something clean. She goes to the dresser, digs around until she finds a set of pajamas that Jimmy had sent her for her birthday a few years ago. She doesn’t often wear them because they just seem too nice. But too nice is just right for Sharon. It’s a short-sleeved, button down shirt and matching pants, soft and lightweight. They’re pink with a floral print. 

She presents them to Sharon who is already halfway through putting the dishes in the sink into the dishwasher. 

“Oh,” Sharon says when she sees them. “How sweet.” 

“I think… I may shower. Are you okay with that?”

“Of course,” Sharon says. 

“I know you’ll make yourself at home,” Brenda says. “I won’t be long.” 

A shower feels right, even if it makes Sharon wait on her. She just feels grungy and greasy, not good enough to sit next to Sharon on the couch. Overripe. 

She washes her hair first, shaves while the conditioner sets. Charlie has a body wash that smells like apples and she uses that instead of the plain white bar of soap she usually favors. She feels like she needs to smell like more than clean skin to pass muster for Sharon. 

When she turns off the water, she stands dripping in the shower for a few seconds. The light is dim, the fan whirring is loudly and probably needs replacing. She pulls back the curtain, reaches for her towel, which smells a little musty. When was the last time she washed it?

She can hear Sharon talking when she opens the bathroom door, a soft murmur like she’s on the phone. She dries of briskly in her room and then uses the towel to wrap her hair up in. Digs through her drawers again and finds some clean shorts, blue with white polka dots. It feels weird to put on a bra with pajamas but it would be weirder not to have one on at all. So clean underwear, mostly clean bra. And then the shorts and a white tank top. She throws a chunky sweater on over it all and goes back to the bathroom to deal with her hair.

The only time she can brush it is when it’s wet, so she spends some time de-tangling it and then puts some cream in it to help control the curls as they dry. 

Sharon is still on the phone when she comes out and Brenda realizes it’s her phone, not Sharon’s, that Sharon has to her ear. 

“Here she is,” Sharon says. She holds the phone out. “It’s Charlie. I answered it.”

Brenda takes the phone. “Hi, honey.” 

“Hi,” Charlie says. “You guys having a girls night?”

“Looks like,” Brenda says. “How are you? How’s your dad and mom?”

“Everything is fine here,” she says. “It’s nice to be home and I also can’t wait to leave.”

Brenda chuckles. “Yeah, that’s kinda what it’s like from now on.” 

“Sharon said you sold the car?” Charlie asks.

“My car,” Brenda says. “Lieutenant Sanchez wanted to buy it, can you believe?”

“I cannot believe,” Charlie says. “Well that’s great, right? The two of us don’t need three cars.”

“Do you think I shoulda sold the big one?” Brenda frets. 

“No,” Charlie says. “You clearly favor that one. Why not keep the one you like best?” 

“I didn’t even know I liked it,” Brenda says. “Fritz never let me drive it.” 

She almost never talks about him, outside of therapy, and saying his name immediately feels weird. 

“We’ll have space in the garage,” Charlie says, marching right past it. “Maybe we can go through the stuff in there when I come back.”

“Sure, honey,” Brenda says. Sharon wanders off into the living room now, settles herself on the sofa. Brenda looks at the back of her head. “Have fun, don’t worry about me, okay?”

“Okay,” Charlie says. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Brenda says. “It’s late there, get some sleep.” 

Charlie just laughs. “Bye.” And hangs up. 

Brenda plugs her phone into the charger they leave plugged into the kitchen outlet and abandons it. No one else will call her. 

“We have Netflix, we have the Amazon one and Hulu, I think,” Brenda says. “That covers a lot.” 

“You want to watch Bake-Off?” Sharon asks. “That’s on Netflix.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh,” Sharon says. “It’s so soothing. It’s just British people baking things in a tent in a field while being politely judged.” 

“Uh...” Brenda says.

“Yes, it sounds boring, but there’s something about it. It’s so gentle.” She takes the remote from Brenda. And it must be something, because when she gets into Netflix, she doesn’t even have to search for it. It’s in the popular stream. New episodes added. “We’ll start at the beginning,” Sharon says. 

“You know what Charlie likes to watch?” Brenda says. “People doing their makeup on YouTube.”

“I guess that’s popular,” Sharon says. “People can make money from it.”

“It is weirdly captivating,” Brenda says. “They’re all basically commercials for expensive products, but I get it, I guess.”

Brenda has her doubts about watching people bake, but Sharon is right. There’s something about the cinematography that lulls her right in.

“Hey,” Sharon says after a few minutes. “You want me to braid your hair?”

Brenda turns to look at her incredulously. It feels like a prank.

“You want to _what_?” Brenda asks. “Are we having a sleepover?”

“Wow, a simple no would have sufficed,” she says, turning back to the screen.

“I’m… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I just don’t see why you’d want to do that,” Brenda says. “I didn’t mean to be a bitch.” 

“Ah,” Sharon says. “We never mean to, do we?” She glances at Brenda and smirks. “It’s fine. I just figured you always are putting your hair up into that ratty bun because you don’t want to deal with it. A good braid could last you three days, easily.” 

“Oh,” Brenda says.

“Oh? Reconsidering my kind request, are we?” Sharon says. “Better choose, we should do it before your hair dries.”

“God, fine,” Brenda says. She should stick with no, she knows she should. First of all, her and her ratty bun have been through a lot together, secondly the idea of Sharon’s fingers against her scalp make the bees start to hum. She’s been real good about suppressing whatever it is that Sharon makes her feel now that she comes around so often, but this is asking too much.

Brenda wonders if Sharon has ever slept with a woman. 

Probably not. 

But the urge to ask her starts to mount and now she has two things she’s gotta push down hard on.

Why ask a question she already knows the answer to anyway? Sharon was married to her first husband for a long time, Sharon who casually dated Andy Flynn for a spell, Sharon, who it turns out, is very Catholic. That’s not the type of woman who sleeps with other woman, even if she wants to. So there’s no point in asking, really. Sharon’s terrible taste in men is answer enough.

She gets her hair brush and two elastics from the basket they keep on the back of the toilet. She’d had to dig for two that match, these are both purple and skinny. Part of a rainbow pack Charlie had bought. 

Sharon has pushed the coffee table forward and placed a throw pillow at her feet for Brenda to sit on. She hands Sharon her brush which is full of hair and the two purple elastics. Sharon slips them both onto her wrist as Brenda plops at her feet. 

“Who knew you were a hairdresser?” Brenda says, reaching for the remote to restart Bake-Off.

“My daughter is a ballerina,” Sharon says. “Braiding became part of my everyday life very quickly.”

Sharon brushes her hair out again, Brenda just keeps her eyes glued to the screen and tries not to think about how nice it feels to have someone doting on her, how extra nice it feels that it’s Sharon. She’s sitting between Sharon’s knees. She can smell Sharon’s perfume, or the body wash she uses, something warm and elegant. 

“You need a haircut, your ends are a disaster,” Sharon says. She’s moved onto sectioning off the hair. 

“Oh, I’m sure,” Brenda says. “Curls hide all manner of sins, though.”

“Until you get up close,” Sharon says.

“The only one getting up close to me is you,” Brenda retorts and then immediately regrets it. She feels herself coloring. She shouldn’t say things like that, small comments are nothing when they stand alone but enough of them are a breadcrumb trail that’ll lead right to the truth and she doesn’t need that. 

Sharon says nothing in return. Just sets some of Brenda’s hair over her shoulder and starts braiding the other side. 

Sharon’s fingers in her hair are very nice. Brenda feels herself relax just a tiny bit. She can’t remember the last time someone besides Charlie has touched her. She feels herself slump against one of Sharon’s knee. Sharon braces her leg a little to give Brenda support and doesn’t scold her for her bad posture.

On the screen, someone’s bake goes wrong. It’s the most dramatic thing to happen so far and all the other contestants crowd around the doomed baker and try to help.

“Everyone on this show is so nice,” Brenda says. 

Sharon hums in agreement. 

It hurts a little, too, because she’s braiding tightly. There’s a few yanks, a few pulls, but Brenda doesn’t mind the pain, exactly. It’s a good hurt. 

Sharon ties off the first braid. Shifts a little to get to the other side. Brenda leans against her other knee to help.

“I just want cake now,” Brenda murmurs.

“Yes, that is an unfortunate side effect of this show.” Sharon drags her fingers along Brenda’s temple, gathering stray locks of hair that have already curled up wild. Brenda leans into the touch without thinking much of it and then realizes, freezes. 

“Did I hurt you?” Sharon says, hesitating.

“Just a little snag,” Brenda murmurs, glad for the excuse. 

“You don’t have much gray,” Sharon says. “Which is impressive.”

“It’s just hard to see with all the blonde,” Brenda says. “I catch one every now and then.” 

“I’m…” she hesitates, sighs and then says, “I’m totally gray.”

“Really?” Brenda whispers, slightly scandalized. Of course she knew Sharon’s hair was a dye job. Sometimes it's so much darker, sometimes lighter. Red fades easy, after all. But totally gray is hard to imagine and Sharon isn’t one to admit things like that. She’s always so put together, head to toe chic. Makeup, hair perfect, clothes lovely and flattering. 

“I guess at some point I’ll have to… I mean at what age do you start to look ridiculous and out of touch?”

“Your hair is beautiful, you don’t seem out of touch,” Brenda says. 

“Well,” Sharon says. The braid is lower now, Brenda can feel Sharon’s fingers against her neck, moving the hair. She can feel the pull in her scalp from the tight braids. “Thank you.”

“Mmm,” Brenda says, as if it meant nothing to her. 

Sharon ties off the end of the second braid. “Turn around.”

Brenda drags her eyes off the colorful TV and spins on her pillow to face Sharon. It’s far too intimate because she’s still tucked between Sharon’s knees but Sharon just stares at Brenda, surveying her work and then carefully uses just a few bristles of the brush to pull some hair free in front of her ears - two small tendrils to frame her face.

“Perfect,” Sharon says softly. “Now, you can pin them up during the day if you’d like to help keep the frizz at bay. You know, milkmaid braids. But I’d sleep with them down, it’ll be more comfortable.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Brenda says looking up at her. She grins and then moves to turn away.

“Brenda, wait, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Brenda says. Her heart starts to hammer. Wouldn’t it be so strange if Sharon asked _her_ the question that’s been clawing at Brenda? Just like when she was getting ready to call Sharon to scold her and the phone rang right in Brenda’s hands. A coincidence, one meant to throw them together. 

“Would it be all right if I just stayed?” Sharon asks. 

“Stayed?” Brenda repeats, confused because it’s not what she’d been picturing.

“The night,” Sharon says. “I could sleep on the couch, I just… feel like going home to that empty condo-”

“Oh!” Brenda says. “Yeah, sure. Of course. You can sleep in Charlie’s bed or with… I mean, you ain’t gotta sleep on this old couch.”

Sharon smiles, pats her shoulder. “Thank you.” She sighs, as if asking had been a struggle. Maybe it had. 

“You’re doing me a favor,” Brenda confesses. “I don’t like waking up alone.”

Brenda gets off the floor, her knees cracking with the effort. She tosses the pillow back onto the couch.

“Hot chocolate?” she asks.

“Sure,” Sharon says. “Want me to pause it?”

“Nah, I can see it from the kitchen,” Brenda says. She’ll make it on the stove with milk, stirring it slowly until it thickens, like her mama used to do.

She pauses in front of the sink. She can see her reflection in the window - the pretty french braids Sharon had done for her make her look more like Charlie in the warped glass than herself. She reaches up and tugs on the end of one. 

Sharon catches her looking, twisted around on the couch to watch her.

“You like them?” Sharon asks. 

Brenda nods at her reflection. “I do,” she says.


	6. six

_You know the bar down the street don't close for an hour_  
_We should take a walk and look at all the flowers_  
_'Cause I'm alright with a slow burn_  
_Taking my time, let the world turn_

**Slow Burn - Kacey Musgraves**

*

They both fall asleep watching Bake-Off, warm and full of cocoa. Brenda wakes up she doesn’t know how many episodes later, but Netflix has stopped and is on a still screen, asking them if they are still watching. Brenda sits up, looks around. Her back is aching. The lit candle on the coffee table flickers and Brenda can see at least a solid inch of liquid wax through the container. It’s been burning a long time. 

She turns to look at the clock in the kitchen and jumps when she sees Sharon curled up at the end of the couch.

She’d asked to stay the night. Brenda reaches up again, fingers the end of her braid. Where are Sharon’s glasses anyway? She hasn’t seen them all night. Not even when she was moving the SUV. 

Brenda carries their two empty mugs to the kitchen and sets them in the sink. 

Is Charlie’s room even fit for her to sleep in? Surely the sheets aren’t crisp and clean, but they can’t be bad. She wanders down the hall and pokes her head into Charlie’s room, feeling along the wall until she finds the switch and turns it on. The only thing that comes on is the string of white christmas lights she has tacked along the ceiling of the room but it’s certainly enough to see by. Cozy, even. 

The clock on her nightstand says it’s 1:36 am. 

The bed is rumpled, so she pulls back the comforter, hauls up the sheet and straightens it all out. It’s clean enough. There’s makeup on the floor by the mirror, but not a lot because Charlie had taken most of her everyday products with her. Brenda leans over to pick up what remains and drop it into the clear acrylic container that’s also on the floor. Her back twinges again and she rubs at the sore muscle. Too old for falling asleep slumped forward like that. 

She crouches to pick up some clothes on the floor and toss them into the hamper. 

Good enough. 

She goes to the row of cupboards in the hall, meant for linens. Some of them do have linens, to be fair, but the one closest to the bathroom has toiletries. The cotton rounds and Q-Tips, the box of tampons, hair products they have but don’t use daily, a tangle of curling irons, hair dryers, and a few straighteners that don’t get hot enough anymore but they can’t seem to just throw out. And tucked into the back, a pack of toothbrushes. She has to peel the plastic away from the cardboard and dig one out - the handle is blue and white. Brenda’s is pink and white, Charlie has a purple one, so that will work just fine. She leaves it lying on the edge of the old sink. 

Sharon is still asleep. Brenda looks down at her for a moment, willing her just to wake up by virtue of Brenda thinking hard at her but that doesn’t work. Brenda makes a little noise turning off the TV and setting the remote down on the coffee table not that quietly, but Sharon doesn’t stir. 

So, Brenda reaches forward and puts her hand on Sharon’s hip. Gives it a pat. 

Sharon stirs, blinks, pushes her hair out of her face.

“What time is it?” she asks. She doesn’t seem surprised to find herself still on Brenda’s couch, anyway. 

“After one,” Brenda says. “Time for bed.” 

Sharon sits up. looks around. 

“Where are your glasses?” Brenda asks. 

Sharon squints up at her. “They broke, I’m waiting for the new pair to arrive.” 

“You can see well enough without them?” Brenda asks. “To get by, I mean?”

“I can get by,” Sharon says. “That menu at the restaurant was a struggle. Driving at night isn’t great.” 

_Oh_. Brenda sits on the opposite arm of the couch. “That’s why you wanted to stay.” 

Sharon pushes her hair back again. “No,” she says. “It’s not.” 

“Then why?” Brenda presses.

“I thought… it might just be nice since we were both alone tonight.” She cocks her head. “I can still go if I misread the situation.”

“Of course not,” Brenda says. “I’m sorry, I’m just…”

“Suspicious of everything I do, I know,” Sharon says. 

There’s no sense in arguing that, since she’s right, but it’s annoying all the same. “I don’t mean to be,” is what Brenda settles on. “I’m working on it.”

“I know,” Sharon says. 

“I found you a toothbrush,” Brenda says. “You can use our makeup remover, if you want.”

“Thank you.” 

“It’s all in there, go ahead,” Brenda says, waving her hands. She’s tired, so it’s tempting to just crawl into bed but she should make sure Sharon is settled first. She blows out the candle, watches the smoke swirl and dissipate. She locks the front door and the back, hearing Sharon’s earlier words echo in her mind. 

She turns off lights - the kitchen, the laundry room, the living room. Only the warm glow from Charlie’s lights, the dim lamp on Brenda’s nightstand, and the line of light under the bathroom door remain. 

She stands in the dark hallway, back against the bare wall and takes a deep breath. Another one, feels a lump in her throat.

Tears overtake her at the weirdest times. It’s not just when she’s sad, it’s when she feels anything. Always too much of anything. Fear or happiness, boredom or anticipation or hope or anything, just tears. 

She hides her face in her hands, wills it all to pass. 

That’s how Sharon finds her, anyway, when she comes out of the bathroom in borrowed pajamas, her hair tied back, her face scrubbed clean. Just standing the dark, crying into her open hands. 

“Come on,” Sharon says softly. “Let’s go to bed.” 

Brenda allows herself to be led to her bedroom, let’s Sharon pull her covers back and ease her into the bed. Pull the covers up and turn off the lamp.

“I’m just down the hall, if you need me,” Sharon says, pressing the back of her hand against Brenda’s forehead briefly. 

Brenda sniffs, snuffles, wipes at her face. Sharon leaves the door open and Brenda watches the hall until the soft lights from Charlie’s room extinguishes.

Then, after a long time, she falls asleep.

oooo

Sharon’s already gone when Brenda wakes up. It’s late into the morning and she’d left the coffee pot prepped and ready for Brenda. All she has to do is push the button to brew. She’d also left a note on the back of a receipt. 

_Thanks for everything. Call me._

_Sharon_

Brenda isn’t going to call her. Text, _maybe_. And anyway, Sharon will come get her for her next therapy appointment, right?

She’ll have to talk about Sharon spending the night, about crying in the hallway. 

When she goes to the bathroom, the blue and white toothbrush is in the holder next to her pink and white one.

oooo

The day before Charlie is supposed to come home, Sharon calls and says, “Can I go with you to pick her up?”

“You wanna go to the airport with me?” Brenda asks. She’s holding her phone between her shoulder and her ear, unpacking groceries. She’d figured she couldn’t let Charlie come home to such a pathetic kitchen.

“Yes,” Sharon says. “I love picking people up from the airport. I love the idea of someone you love coming home.” 

“I mean,” Brenda says, popping a grape into her mouth before she puts them away. “Whatever floats your boat.” 

“What time were you going to leave?”

“Her flight gets in at 7:45, that’s not too late for you?” Brenda asks. 

“No.”

“I was gonna leave around 7:00 - you never know what traffic will be like,” she says.

“Okay, I’ll head over right after work,” Sharon says. “See you then.”

“Bye-bye, now,” she says and hangs up. 

She’s trying to ride this wave of productivity as far as it will take her, so she tidies up everywhere. The kitchen, the bathroom, the living room. She pulls open the little drawer in the coffee table to hide away the remotes and finds the library book she’d checked out. 

“Shit,” she says. That’s almost certainly late and she hadn’t read a single word. She pulls it out, looks at it. 

Well, maybe she’ll go drop it off and then go to the Coffee Bean for something sweet. 

The big library by her house is still open when she pulls in, taking one of the few available parking spots with her car. It’s almost too big and she has to angle herself to slide out through the narrowly open door. There’s a book drop outside and she almost just chucks the book in and runs, but she knows she has a fine so she takes it in instead and waits in line at the desk.

At this big branch, there are people everywhere. On computers, at tables studying, browsing the books on the shelves.

There’s an older woman at the desk, her red hair cropped close to her scalp. She looks up at Brenda over her computer monitor and says, “What are we doing today?”

Brenda slides the book toward her. “I think this is late.”

“Are you ready to turn it in or did you want to renew?” she asks.

“I’m done,” Breda says. The woman picks the book up and waves it near her computer. It doesn’t even beep.

“A dollar seventy-five,” the woman says. “We take cash or check here at the desk or you can pay online with your credit card.” 

“Uh,” she says, digging through her bag for her wallet. It always sinks to the bottom. “I have cash, I think.”

She unzips her wallet to find it’s jammed full of singles mixed with receipts. Mostly CVS receipts which are long even when she buys just one thing. She pulls out a wad and untangles the dollar bills from the long strips of paper. She pushes two crumpled bills toward the woman and scrunches up the receipts.

“Here,” the woman says, taking pity. “I can throw those away for you.” 

It reminds her of Sharon, always giving in sympathetically now, offering to do simple things for her because it’s apparent Brenda can’t handle anything. 

“Thanks,” Brenda says. She lets the trash go. The woman takes it, tosses it under the desk and then stands to ring in the two dollars. The drawer pops open and she pulls out a quarter. 

“Here’s your change. How about I just keep the receipt?” she says.

“How ‘bout it,” Brenda agrees. 

“Did you want me to help you find something to check out today?” she asks.

“No, I think… I’m gonna have to work back up to that,” Brenda says.

“There’s a program starting upstairs in twenty minutes,” the woman says. “It’s our monthly writing group. It’s always looking for new members.”

“I’m not a writer,” Brenda says. 

“You don’t have to be,” she says. “Other people share their work. They always need critiques.” 

“Thanks,” Brenda says. Like hell she’s going to that. But she does grab a flyer off the desk before she goes of things happening in the library. Shoves it in her bag to appease the woman before all but running back to her car.

oooo

They take the SUV to pick up Charlie, but Sharon offers to drive and Brenda says yes to that. Sharon’s new glasses look a lot like her old ones, though the frames are a little thicker, a little darker. She looks like a sharper, smarter version of Sharon. 

They’re not even three blocks away from the house before Brenda says, “Are you dating anyone?”

It’s the new glasses, maybe? Something has nudged Brenda off her game. Maybe it’s Sharon’s perfume filling up the cab of the car, like she’d sprayed it before leaving work. Maybe it’s the fact that Brenda can tell she isn’t wearing nylons with this gray skirt she has on and there’s a lot of bare leg right next to her. Maybe it’s that her hair is clipped back elaborately, like she’d put a lot of effort into it.

It’s like Sharon is trying to look pretty on purpose. 

Brenda supposes pretty people don’t have to try at looking pretty, that maybe she’s just projecting her own feelings all over the situation. 

“No,” Sharon says. “Not at the moment. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” Brenda says. “Sorry, none of my business, I guess.”

“It’s fine,” Sharon says. “You know I was seeing Lieutenant Flynn for a while.”

“I’d heard that, yes,” Brenda says. 

“I realized that I had a type and… despite Andy’s sobriety and best intentions, my own bad taste in men was always going to work against me,” she says. “I’m just not in the mood for that anymore.”

“Men?” Brenda asks and then feels like clapping her hand over her mouth. 

Sharon just chuckles. “Precisely.” She flips on her turn signal and cuts over a lane and then speeds up as they hit the onramp to the freeway. She doesn’t say anything until they’re merged and headed steady on. “Do you think about dating?”

“Oh,” Brenda says. “Sometimes.”

“I think that’s good,” Sharon says. 

“I agree, though,” Brenda says. “Men. Ugh.”

She glances over at Sharon. Sharon is smirking. 

“I’ve arrived at a point in my life where I don’t need a relationship to be happy,” Sharon says. “If something comes along, fine, but if not, that’s fine too.”

Brenda looks down at her lap where her hands sit, her wedding rings glinting in the evening light. 

“I don’t know why I still wear these,” Brenda admits. “I ain’t married anymore.”

“Grief is strange and won’t be rushed,” Sharon says. “If you aren’t ready to take them off, then you aren’t ready.”

“Sometimes I don’t even miss him,” Brenda admits. “I’m just sad about the way it happened. It seems so unfair. Other times I can’t even remember why I’m sad. It’s just become my default.” 

She spins the rings on her finger and then starts to pull them off. She has to twist at her knuckle but then the engagement ring pops free and the wedding band underneath comes easier. She holds them in her open hand.

“Look at that,” Sharon says. “How does it feel?”

There’s an indentation on her ring finger and the skin is paler. 

“Feels alright I guess,” Brenda says. “What do I do with them?”

“Put them in a jewelry box,” Sharon says. “Look at them if you want to, or never look at them again if you don’t.”

“Do you still have your rings from your marriage?” Brenda asks.

“I had a gold band that I sold with a bunch of things to make rent when Jackson gambled our rent money away. He promised to replace it and left before he ever did,” Sharon says. 

“You _do_ have bad taste,” Brenda says.

Sharon hums in agreement. 

“The stone is nice,” she says. “I guess I could always have it taken out and put in something else. Or I could give it to Charlie, if she gets married.”

“Sure,” Sharon says. 

Brenda pulls her purse onto her lap and feels for the little zippered pocket on the inside. She puts the rings in there and zips it closed.

“Sometimes to talk about with Dr. Barrett,” Brenda says with an anxious laugh. 

“How’s that going?” Sharon asks. 

There’s traffic, now, and they’ve slowed down considerably. 

“Okay,” Brenda says. “Good, maybe. I feel like we don’t talk about anything but then the hour is over and I feel exhausted.”

“She must be good,” Sharon says. 

“I talk about you,” Brenda says. She doesn’t know why she admits it, but it seems like she’s got to. Sharon’s perfume is amazing. “I mean, I have.”

“Me?”

“Just that we used to work together and we weren’t friends but then maybe we were and now you and Charlie… and you’re at my house all the time.” Brenda shrugs. “She said we were friends.”

“We are friends,” Sharon says. “Do you want me to come over less?”

“No,” Brenda says. “At first I did but now it’s… I like it.” She puts her face in her hands. “I’m not good at friends, I never have been.”

“You’re doing fine,” Sharon says. “But you should be honest with me. About coming over or not, about how you feel.”

She’s about to open her mouth and say something _really_ stupid with a car moves in front of them with no turn signal and Sharon has to slam on the breaks not to rear end it. She hits the horn.

“Asshole,” she mutters. 

So Brenda doesn’t say how she feels and that’s for the best. God sent her that asshole in the BMW to save her from herself. 

Charlie is waiting on the sidewalk when they pull up. Brenda jumps out as soon as they slow down enough and hugs her.

“Traffic,” she says. 

“Of course,” Charlie says. “I haven’t been here long.”

Sharon pushes the button inside to pop the hatch and Brenda tries to help with Charlie’s suitcase but Charlie just says, “I got it,” and hefts it in on her own. 

“You want to sit in the front?” Brenda asks.

“No, no,” she says. “The back is fine.”

Sharon doesn’t get out of the car mostly because there is a cop hovering near them, hustling people out of the loading zone. LAX is always busy. Brenda gets back in, Sharon turns and smiles at Charlie.

“Welcome home,” she says. “How was the flight?”

“Long,” Charlie says. “Can someone please feed me real food?”

“I think that can be arranged,” Sharon says. 

“How were Bobby and Joyce?” Brenda asks as Sharon pulls away from the curb. 

“Fine, they send their love,” Charlie says.

“Did you see Uncle Clay?” Brenda asks.

“Yeah, I saw pretty much everyone. We had a barbeque so people could come over. Everyone asked about you. I said you were doin’ fine.”

“Nice of you to lie,” Brenda mutters. Sharon shoots her a stern look. 

“I don’t know it’s just weird now that grandma and grandpa are gone. And their house isn’t there.”

They’d sold the house after her daddy had died. It would have been nice to keep it, maybe, but no one could afford to keep it up and none of her brothers wanted to move into it, so it was just more practical to let it go. Brenda had gotten a little money from the sale, but her daddy’s health had been so bad at the end, that most of their money had gone into the nurse that came every day to the house and by the time they had paid all the bills and the paid for the funeral… it wasn’t a lot of money split four ways, in the end. 

“I know,” Brenda says. “It’s weird for me too.” 

On the freeway, Sharon says, “How about hamburgers?”

They go to a Burger Lounge in Santa Monica. It’s a little busy, they have to park in one of the city lots nearby and pay, which Charlie does with an app on her phone before Sharon can even get out her wallet. Then, there’s a line to order. Charlie goes and scouts out a table, hovers near a family who is leaving and then snags the booth. 

She texts Brenda her order. 

“Kids,” Brenda says, showing her phone to Sharon. 

Brenda tries to pay, but Sharon doesn’t let her. Says, “You paid for parking,” which is not exactly true, but Brenda has learned over many years to pick her fights with Sharon. 

The burgers are fine. Brenda isn’t a huge burger person, but the other two seem to enjoy them. Brenda can tell Charlie is exhausted but she’s a champ, talking about her time in Atlanta while they eat. They’re just discussing whether or not to stop and pick up something for dessert to eat at the house when Sharon’s phone rings. It’s sitting right next to her on the table and Brenda can see it’s Provenza form the other side of the booth. 

“Oh,” Sharon says, sounding a little sad.

“Go on, you know you gotta,” Brenda says. 

She swipes to answer and puts the phone up to her ear. “Captain Raydor.” She sticks her finger in her other ear and squints, as if that’s going to make her hear better. Charlie starts putting everything on the tray to bus it. 

“Uh huh, okay,” Sharon says. “I have to take the Johnsons home, so I’ll be about forty minutes.”

Charlie looks at her and whispers, “Should we Uber?”

“The dead are already dead,” she says. “They’ll keep an extra twenty minutes.” 

Sharon hangs up. “Sorry.”

“It’s quite all right,” Brenda says. “I been in those shoes.” 

“Lieutenant Provenza says hello to you both,” Sharon adds. 

Charlie slides out first, takes the tray to the trash. They follow along. Walking back to the car, Charlie says, “Thank you for dinner, Sharon.” 

“Yes,” Brenda adds. “Sorry dessert is off the table.”

“I don’t need it anyway,” Sharon says. “But I’m glad we got to spend this time together.”

Charlie loops her hand through Sharon’s arm and gives her a brief squeeze while they walk.

Brenda trails behind them, jealous and nervous and afraid.

oooo

Charlie sits at the kitchen table where Brenda is sipping at a lukewarm cup of coffee and doing the crossword puzzle in the paper. It’s not quite noon. They’re not early risers. Charlie has to work tonight, she knows, and is probably still beat from a day of airline travel so Brenda let her sleep, keeping quietly to herself. 

“Can I ask you something?” Charlie says.

“Sure, darlin’,” Brenda says.

“Did Sharon sleep in my bed?” Charlie asks. “Sorry, is that weird?”

“Oh, shoot, I… should asked you, huh? Or changed your sheets for you. I’m sorry, was that a violation of your space?”

“No it’s fine, I just am surprised is all,” Charlie says. “She spent the night?”

“She did,” Brenda says. “It was no big deal. She fell asleep on the couch watching a movie, I told her just to stay.”

It’s not exactly the truth and Brenda isn’t sure why she lies. She doesn’t even think about it, the words just come out. She can’t bring herself to tell Charlie that it was Sharon who asked to stay, that Brenda had been awake half the night, her temples throbbing from the tight braids, her mind racing with the knowledge that Sharon Raydor was just one room away. 

“How did you know?” Brenda asks. 

“My pillow smelled like her,” Charlie says. “It was actually kind of comforting.” 

Brenda feels her stomach clench. The buzzing under her skin grows louder. 

“Charlie,” Brenda says. “I’m… I’m sorry I was upset at the beginnin’. About Sharon. Because she’s been… really good for me, I think.”

“I think so, too,” Charlie says. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t like her.”

“It’s complicated,” Brenda says. 

And it’s all she’ll say on the matter. 

Charlie makes them breakfast for lunch. She stands at the stove, frying bacon, making hashbrowns, and heating a deep saucepan of water to poach eggs in. 

Brenda could not successfully poach an egg if her life depended on it, but Charlie manages to poach two while paying attention to three other things. And then, when she plates it up, it looks so nice and it tastes _good_. Brenda perforates the poached egg with the side of her fork and yolk rushes out and seeps into the bed of hashbrowns it sits on. 

“My friend from the bar, Genevieve,” Charlie says. “She works at the Wood Ranch in the Grove?”

“What’s that?” Brenda asks.

“It’s like a chain barbecue restaurant,” Charlie says. “She says they need more servers and that she could put in a good word for me.”

“You want to quit the bar?” Brenda asks. 

“No, I could do both,” Charlie says. “How would you feel about that? Me getting a second job.” 

Brenda picks up a piece of bacon, takes a bite. It melts in her mouth.

“Are you worried about money?” Brenda asks. “Are you bored?”

“I think I could contribute more, yes,” Charlie says. “Especially with you not working.” 

“I just… I’m gonna go back to work,” Brenda says, feeling defensive. 

“I know, no one is rushing you,” Charlie says. “Anyway, I have to do something for a year until I can go back to school, I may as well save up, right?”

“If you want to do that, you should do it,” Brenda says. 

“What… do you think you want to do when you’re ready? Go back to the District Attorneys office?”

“No,” Brenda says. “I don’t know, not that.”

“Maybe Sharon can help you,” Charlie says. 

“Sharon has done enough for me,” Brenda says. “I can’t ask her to take on my whole life as a sad pity project.” 

“She doesn’t feel like that,” Charlie says.

“Yeah? How does she feel, then?” Brenda asks. 

“You should know exactly how she feels,” Charlie says. “She works all the time, she doesn’t have any friends, her kids have all moved out. She broke up with her boyfriend. Maybe she needs us as much as we need her.” 

“It is a lonely job,” Brenda concedes. “And you can love your team but it’s difficult to be their boss and their friend.”

“You guys have so much in common,” Charlie says. “And if I take this job, I’ll be around even less.”

Brenda drags her fork across her plate, gathering the last of the yolk on the fork tine and then sticks it into her mouth. 

“You think I don’t notice that you cook for me when you want to tell me something important?” Brenda asks.

Charlie grins. “That’s what my mama taught me to do.” 

“Your mama is wise,” Brenda says. “Okay, I will give Sharon a call. I will initiate the next move in this game of friendship. Would that make you happy?”

“Yep,” Charlie says. 

oooo

Brenda almost calls Sharon but then, she shows up Tuesday to take Brenda to therapy anyway, so when they’re in the car, Brenda says. “You want to go out and get a drink?”

Sharon glances at her. “Now?” she asks, confused.

“No not now,” Brenda says. “Clearly not now.”

“Honey, I have to go right back to work after this,” Sharon says.

“I just mean sometime,” Brenda says. “Do something not in my house. Wear real clothes. Drink some wine or something.”

“Oh,” Sharon says. “Yes, that might be nice. How about tomorrow, if we don’t catch a new case.” 

“Okay,” Brenda says. “Good."

It’s not until she’s halfway through her therapy session, talking about how her parents liked Fritz more than their own daughter that she realizes that asking someone for drinks is basically asking someone on a date.

“Brenda?” Dr. Barrett says. “You okay?”

She’d stopped mid-sentence, has forgotten what she was saying.

“Yeah,” she says. “No. I’m not sure.”

Dr. Barrett frowns and scribbles something onto her notepad.


	7. seven

_I always knew it_  
_We were taking the long way round_  
_Don't think, do it_  
_And we gonna find out now_  
_Less breath, first kiss_  
_Ain't no coming back from a love like this_  
_We gonna burn that bridge_

**Burn That Bridge - Donovan Woods**

*

Brenda receives another check from Julio in the mailbox. It doesn’t come with the mail delivery, it’s just an envelope with her name on it scrawled in familiar handwriting. He’d must have dropped it off in person, early. 

Because of this money, she feels a little frivolous and decides to buy a dress for her drinks with Sharon. It’s not that she needs to impress Sharon - Sharon’s seen her in dirty pajamas and ratty sweats for months now. But Brenda feels like she doesn’t even have anything nice. She’d gotten rid of so much in her great purge - the majority of her work clothes for sure. The dated blazers, the worn out skirts, the scuffed up shoes. She has some things - the more basic pieces. Black and gray sheath dresses, a couple suits, some of her nicer patterned dresses, but nothing that feels right for late June. Anything with a lining will be too hot, but anything that won’t be too hot doesn’t seem dressy enough. 

She showers and takes time to shave - her legs and under her arms and her bikini line too, though it ruins the razor that wasn’t real sharp to begin with. When she’s done, she slathers lotion all over her skin - her legs and arms and shoulders. She puts product in her hair and blow dries it while standing in her bra and underwear. Wraps sections around a barrel brush and then takes time to curl what she’d blown out straight. She doesn’t want wild curls, she wants control. She used to do this all the time, early in the morning before work. How had she had the energy?

It’s still early in the day - Sharon is at work and won’t pick her up for hours. She’d offered to meet Sharon at the restaurant Sharon had suggested when Brenda confessed that she didn’t know where to go. Oh sure, there are lots of good places she’d been to before, but none that won’t remind her of Fritz. He liked a good, expensive meal and always made sure wherever he picked would have a wine that she liked. He was considerate like that. Sometimes. When he wanted to be. 

Sharon had insisted that she could pick Brenda up, that it was on the way.

She wears a pair of Charlie’s jean shorts and a t-shirt, looks accidentally like she’s trying too hard to be young, but at least her legs aren’t elbows aren’t dry. There’s a Nordstrom Rack on South Figueroa next to a huge parking structure, so she goes there. Nice, but it won’t break the bank.

There are so many people out in the middle of the day, shopping, having lunch, doing whatever. She’d used to marvel at them when they were out, heading to and from a crime scene. Who were all these people? Why weren’t they at work? 

Now she’s one of them, parking her too big car and hopping out to see that she is, in fact, in the lines of the parking spot. Technically. She moseys on inside, checking her phone as she walks, grateful for the blast of air conditioning that hits her when she makes it indoors. 

It’s a little overwhelming, shopping alone. She’s never been great at it which is why the majority of her wardrobe was old when she'd purged it. Fritz was actually good at picking out things for her, things she’d wear and love. Dresses in her perfect size, a little vintage, modest enough for work but with personality. He’d text her pictures from whatever store he was in and she’d tell him to buy it. Everything she picked out was the things people like Sharon made fun of behind her back, but not quietly enough that she couldn’t hear it. The floral skirts and sweater sets. Things that were overly matchy, a little bit shapeless. 

Now she browses homewares, intimidated by the clothing section in the middle of the store. She looks a throw pillows printed with pineapples and flamingos, lets her fingers drag across a rack of soft scarves when she breaches the accessories department. From there, she finds herself in lingerie, and actually this she can handle. She desperately needs new bras. She picks out two - a nude and a black and carries them towards shoes.

There’s too many people in the row with her size so she hovers at the edge, looking at flip-flops hanging at the end of the shelves. 

And then feeling foolish, she just walks over to the racks of dresses. She spends a few minutes pawing through the racks on the cheaper items before abandoning that as too much work, and moves into the name brand things displayed more elegantly. Her tendency is to go for a pattern and to go for work wear, but this isn’t work related so she can branch out a little and so she does. She looks at a black lace dress with bell sleeves, she looks at a pink floral jumpsuit but she doesn’t think she’d be tall enough to pull it off. Finally she sees something the color of merlot. It’s a wrap dress, but the front is higher than the back at it’s made of velvet. 

It’s too much, maybe, but it’s beautiful. She rubs the soft material between her finger and her thumb and pulls a size four off the rack. 

It’s the only thing she takes into the dressing room with her, besides the bras which she knows will fit already. And when she puts it on, it fits fine. Not too long in the back. She loves the skinny tie at the waist. She loves the fluttery sleeves and the ruched shoulders that give it a faintly 1940s vibe. She loves the fact that it’s on sale for under forty dollars.

Now that she has it, she feels like getting out of this busy, bright store as fast as humanly possible. She puts her clothes on, takes the dress and her bras and heads for the checkout line at the front of the store. Halfway there, an employee stops her and says, “If you’re paying with a card, I can check you out here.”

Brenda looks around. “Here in the middle of the aisle?”

“Sure,” she says. She unclips a device from her belt and uses it to scan the tags on the bras and dress. “88.47 is your total.” 

Brenda digs through her bag for her wallet, frees her card. The woman sticks it into her a device and a few moments later, thrusts it at Brenda. 

“Sign with your finger.” 

It doesn’t look anything like her signature, but the woman doesn’t seem to care. She pulls out Brenda’s card and hands it back and a few moments later, a receipt pops out. 

“All set,” she says. 

Brenda leaves the store marveling at the technology of the future. She doesn’t even have a bag - just her items as she found them and a receipt. No one stops her at the door and when she gets back to her SUV, she tosses her bounty into the backseat. She doesn’t have to worry about the dress wrinkling which is a nice bonus.

She stops at CVS on her way home - she comes here less often now which she thinks is a good thing. Not buying so much chocolate in dirty sweats at weird times of the day and night can only be considered progress. In fact, she doesn’t even recognize the man at the register. 

She’s not here for candy. She heads towards cosmetics instead. Her makeup is all so old and awful that Charlie went through it not long ago and threw away a bunch of things she deemed expired. Brenda didn’t know makeup could expire but allowed it. Charlie let her keep everything that was a powder but her foundation was trashed and her concealers, too. Charlie even threw away a bunch of lipsticks but Brenda suspects that’s because she thought they were ugly, not expired. 

There’s a lot of choices and Brenda stands overwhelmed for a moment. She tries to think about all the videos she’s watched with Charlie of beautiful young girls who do their makeup and what they use. Mostly they use very expensive things, but there’s one blonde girl Charlie likes who isn’t as pretty as the others, just looks more normal, and that girl used a lot of things from the drugstore. Brenda scans the aisles until she finds the foundation that girl had used in the video.

L’Oreal True Match Lumi - which is too much name, maybe. The girl hadn’t liked it, ultimately, because her skin was oily and this foundation is supposed to make the wearer look dewy and fresh. If you put dewy over oily, it’s bad, Brenda learned. But Brenda’s skin is always on the dry side, so she holds up her hand to the row of bottles and picks the color that looks like the closest match. Then she buys a concealer from the same line. She’d always used to buy what seemed closest to her skin for that as well, but now she knows she’s supposed to go lighter to help brighten her face, so she does. And while she’s there, she throws a few more things into her basket, things she’s never used before but apparently needs according to strange, luminous girls on the internet hell bent on selling her products. A bronzer. New makeup brushes. Liquid eyeliner in a little marker. She buys two mascaras because apparently her’s were so old that it made Charlie fake barf into the trashcan where all her makeup was going. 

When she gets to the register, she’s spent nearly seventy-five dollars on makeup. And this is the cheap stuff!

She pays, feels only a tiny bit guilty about it as she hauls her purchases plus one ten cent plastic bag to her car.

It feels good to put effort into herself. She’s allowed herself to collapse in on a comfort only lifestyle and when she’d admitted that to Dr. Barrett, her therapist had reassured her that it was okay. That self-care in the face of overwhelming grief was sometimes the only way forward. But it’s been 9 months of solid wallowing and now the things that had brought her comfort feel like they’re starting to hold her back. 

So it’s important, now, to put foundation on her face, to hide her dark circles, to put on eyeshadow and lipstick and blush high on her cheeks. 

The liquid eyeliner goes… not well. She has to steal a makeup wipe off the floor by Charlie’s mirror in her room and start over. She has plenty of time before Sharon gets off work, so she starts over three times before finally getting something that doesn’t look insane. 

When she puts on the wrap dress, she realizes that it shows more cleavage than she’s comfortable with, so back into Charlie’s room she goes, digging through a pile of clean clothes for a bralette she knows from the laundry. Brenda can’t wear it alone, but manages to get it over her black bra because it’s a little bit stretchy, and when she ties the dress up again, there’s a layer of black lace over the majority over her cleavage. 

She looks in the mirror and is surprised at who she sees.

Charlie comes home from her first job while Brenda is puttering around, waiting for time to pass. 

“Wow,” she says. “Look at you!”

Charlie looks tired - she’s in her black pants and white button down shirt. Her tie is hanging around her neck unknotted. She has just under two hours before she has to leave for her other job. She always comes home exhausted, no matter when Brenda sees her. Brenda reminds her that it’s not necessary that she work herself to the bone, but Charlie seems determined to do so. 

“Oh it’s nothing,” Brenda says, shaking her head.

“You look amazing,” Charlie says, pulling the tie from around her neck and unbuttoning her shirt. Underneath she has a white bra. She whips the shirt off and throws it toward the washer. It doesn’t quite make it and lands on the floor just outside the laundry room.

“Sharon and I are suppose to… I don’t know. Get a drink.” Brenda feels weird saying it because it feels like a date, though it’s not and she’s dressed up like it’s a date, though it isn’t. “I thought maybe I could try to match her level, I guess.”

“I like it,” Charlie says, walking past Brenda to her bedroom. “You passed her right up.” 

Brenda doesn’t know about _that_ , but it feels nice to hear anyway. Charlie comes back out in a black tank top and barefoot. 

“When do you have to leave?” Brenda asks. 

“Not for like an hour,” Charlie says. “Just enough time to do absolutely nothing.” She pulls open the refrigerator and looks in but doesn’t find anything satisfying. She lets it close. 

“I don’t know what shoes to wear,” Brenda admits. 

“Let’s look and see what I have,” Charlie says, knowing what Brenda’s really angling for. Charlie tries to sell Brenda on a pair of combat boots and Brenda shoots that down. 

“I’m too old!” she says over Charlie’s protests that she’d be the coolest person at wherever they’re going to. Charlie has a pair of gladiator sandals that would fit her so, Brenda puts on one, but it’s a lot. She feels overwhelmed, like the shoes and dress are trying to fight for dominance. Charlie also has a pair of black platform pumps that have a skinny heel and are a little scuffed up.

“I wore them to a bachelorette party,” Charlie says, inspecting one and rubbing at a mark with her finger. “It got a little rowdy. They’ll clean up, though.”

Brenda takes one and puts it on. It’s immediately uncomfortable and it’s been a while since she’s worn anything other than a kitten heel but it does look the best.

She leans over and undoes the long zipper of the gladiator sandal. There are already marks on her legs while she shakes it off. She points to the other pump. “Let me have it, I gotta practice.”

She’s teetering around her house when her cell phone rings. She hurries over to the kitchen counter to see that it’s Sharon.

“Hello?” she says breathlessly, wrenching off the shoes so her feet will stop screaming. The cool kitchen floor feels like heaven against her bare soles. 

“Brenda, hi,” Sharon says. “Listen.” 

It doesn’t matter what she says next, Brenda knows immediately what that tone means. They’ve caught a case, or some sort of new development and whatever Sharon and Brenda were going to do this evening is now on hold indefinitely.

Sharon explains about the case hurriedly, promises to call her later, apologizes twice before hanging up. Brenda can’t be mad because she knows the job, knows how these things go, but she’s disappointed. Horribly so.

All dressed up and nowhere to go. 

It’s her own fault for going shopping and getting ready for two hours for something that was so prone to fall apart. 

Charlie comes out, a black sweater over her tank top and her purse on her shoulder. She’s about to leave for her next job. 

“What’s wrong?” Charlie asks.

“Nothin’,” Brenda lies. “Have a good night at work.”

“Have fun with Sharon,” Charlie says. “I won’t be home until after two, probably.”

“Thanks,” Brenda says, and watches her go.

oooo

At 11:30, Brenda’s phone rings again and it’s Sharon and she almost doesn’t answer it. It’s late, she could be asleep, she could let Sharon think that. But at the last second, she swipes over and says, “Hello.”

She means to sound stern or something, but she just sounds tired. 

“Can you come pick me up?” Sharon says, who sounds infinitely more tired. Brenda is slumped into the couch still in her velvet dress but she sits up now in concern.

“Where are you?” Brenda asks.

“Good Samaritan,” Sharon says. 

“Are you okay?”

“Lieutenant Flynn got shot,” Sharon says. “He’s okay but I rode in the ambulance and… he’s going to be here for a few days.”

“Shit,” Brenda says. “Yes. I’m on my way.” 

She can’t show up in this dumb dress, so she takes it off, leaves it on her bedroom floor. Pulls on jeans and a tank top, throws on her brown sweater that ties at the waist and grabs her bag.

She’s in the car half way there before she realizes she the last time she’d been to this hospital was when Fritz died. But she shakes that off. Puts it aside to think about at another time. Compartmentalizing, Dr. Barrett would say. She usually talks about it as if it’s a thing that isn’t so great in the long run, but Brenda thinks right now, it’s good. 

Parking is complicated - she goes around and around an adjacent garage holding the little paper ticket between her teeth. The place is packed and when she finds a spot, she has to ease the SUV into it, backing out to straighten out twice because the slot is so narrow and between two vehicles as large as her own. Then she has to practically wiggle her way out the door. 

Her cheap flip flops make a racket as she hurries down the stairs. Out in the open night air, she realizes there’s a lot of hospital ahead of her and she’s not really sure where to go. Emergency makes the most sense, so she barrels in. It’s now that she wishes she had a badge once more to brandish, to bully people into giving her what she wants right away. That never worked on hospital personnel, she recalls, but it made her feel like at least she was doing something.

She has to wait in a line four people deep before she approaches the window and it takes a lot of work not to be rude.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m here to see a patient who I think was admitted tonight with a gunshot wound. Andrew Flynn? He’s an LAPD officer.” 

“Visiting hours are over,” says the woman behind glass without looking up. 

“I understand that, but the officer who brought him in called me to give her a ride home,” Brenda says. “And she’s waiting to make sure he’s okay before she leaves. Tests and stuff.”

Brenda doesn’t know if this is true, but it easily could be.

“She’s his commanding officer,” Brenda says. “I was LAPD too. She’s not going to leave him until she’s sure he’s okay and she’s just been through a traumatic experience where one of her team members was _shot_ and you’re saying I can’t offer them support right now?”

Now the woman looks up with an expression of boredom and impatience. 

“Okay, ma’am, all right what was his name again?”

“Flynn,” she says. “Andrew.”

The woman types and stares into her computer monitor for a long moment. Brenda can feel the people behind her getting restless.

Finally she says, “We _are_ still waiting on some test results.” She types something else and then says, “I need a picture ID.”

Brenda hands it over gladly and in exchange receives a visitor’s badge and a room number for her trouble. 

“Thank you so much,” she says. 

Andy’s been transferred to a room, so she leaves the ER while hastily shoving her ID back into her wallet and her wallet into her purse. It takes her several minutes to find the right building, the right elevator, the right wing. 

The halls are wide but lined with medical equipment so they feel narrow as she makes her way down, counting numbers until she finds the right room. The door is wide too, but open. She sees and empty bed and past that, a curtain pulled closed. She steps uneasily into the room feeling, quite suddenly, exhausted. The whole day has been an emotional rollercoaster. She almost longs for her next therapy appointment. 

She’s not certain she has the right room until she edges further in and sees, under the curtain, a familiar pair of black pumps. Still she approaches cautiously, stepping softly to stand under the tv mounted on the wall, turned off. Sharon is sitting in a chair looking at her phone, Andy is asleep, his shoulder bandaged quite heavily.

“Hey,” Brenda says as quietly as she can.

Sharon still jumps practically out of her skin, slamming a hand over her heart.

“Jesus Christ,” she says. “You scared me.”

“Sorry, sorry, I was tryin’ not to,” Brenda says. “How is he?”

“Oh, he’s out,” Sharon says. She speaks softly, but then, she always does. “They repaired the damage and the surgery went well. Hit him in the shoulder, through and through.”

“Did y’all get the guy, at least?” Brenda asks. Her purse is heavy, making her shoulder ache. She lets it fall down to her elbow but doesn’t dare set it down. 

“Uh,” Sharon says. “It was… he was a kid, actually. Thirteen, I think, maybe fourteen? Circled back around to the scene with his father’s gun. I think he was just trying to scare us, he was shaking, I saw him trembling. Amy called for backup which was… I don’t know. Maybe not the right call.” 

Not technically wrong but Brenda can read between the lines.

“They killed the kid,” she says dully. 

“They did,” Sharon agrees. “This is all stupid and totally unnecessary.” 

She looks as tired as Brenda has ever seen her. She still has on makeup and her nice clothes but the sheen is gone. The foundation has been on so long now that it’s sitting on her skin, her clothes are rumpled, her hair gone flat. 

“Well,” Brenda says. “I can go get you food. I can pick you up a change of clothes if you want to stay. I can take you home.” 

“Home,” Sharon says. “He’ll be out all night and Louie is coming first thing in the morning.” 

Brenda mouths _Louie_ to herself in surprised horror while Sharon is bent over, grabbing her purse. She has never, not once called Lieutenant Provenza by his first name. She’ll go to her grave knowing that she never will. 

Sharon leans over Andy, speaks softly to him. Brenda can’t hear it over the general din of all the machines he’s attached to. Then she kisses his forehead.

It’s all so much. Brenda had loved her team, her guys, with a wild fury but she was never maternal to them, never warm. Didn’t date them. 

Sharon knows how to get out of the building and that’s a blessing. Brenda follows her through the hallways back to the elevator. Sharon is quiet on the ride down, eyes forward, jaw set. It’s not until she climbs into the SUV that she lets herself relax. She rests her head against the headrest with her eyes closed and sighs.

“You okay?” Brenda asks, even though it’s a stupid thing to say. 

“I thought this day was going to go differently,” Sharon admits, rolling her head to look over at her. “I was looking forward to drinks, actually.” 

“Me too,” Brenda says and it doesn’t feel like an accusation to say it because Sharon said it first. “I miss a lot about Major Crimes, but not these kinds of days.” 

“Brenda, do you think you could take me to your house?” Sharon asks. 

“Yeah,” Brenda says. “If that’s what you want.” 

“I just… don’t think I can face it, tonight.” Sharon doesn’t elaborate on what it might be. An empty condo or something else entirely that haunts her. 

“You don’t have to,” Brenda promises. 

Brenda drives them home. 

Charlie isn’t home yet, when they get in, though it is pushing on one am. Brenda gives Sharon the same set of pajamas from the last time she stayed over, though Sharon decides to shower first. Brenda has to rustle up a clean towel. Sharon’s borrowed toothbrush is still in the holder. 

Brenda decides to make a pot of cocoa on the stove, heat it up slow so it’s creamy and rich. She’s carefully pouring it from the copper bottom pot into mugs, guiding the stream with a wooden spoon when the bathroom door opens. And not long after, Sharon barefoot in her kitchen with wet hair. 

“Lovely,” is all she says when Brenda hands her the mug. 

Brenda is still awake when Charlie comes in, sitting on the sofa with all the candles lit in the house. Sharon had promised that she never fell asleep after close calls, but when the door opens, Sharon is asleep on the couch with her feet in Brenda’s lap. 

Charlie takes in the scene. “I see the date went well?”

“Not exactly,” Brenda says, though Charlie calling it a date makes the back of her neck go all hot and tingly. “She had a case go bad. Lieutenant Flynn got shot in the shoulder.”

“Jesus,” Charlie says, setting her purse down on the little table by the door. Brenda keeps meaning to install some hooks on the wall. “Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine,” Brenda says softly. “She wanted to come here.” 

“She can have my bed again,” Charlie says. “I can sleep with you.” 

“I think we might just stay here,” Brenda says, putting her hand on Sharon’s bony, pale foot. It twitches at the contact but Sharon sleeps on. 

Charlie smiles at her aunt. “Okay,” she says and pats her shoulder as she passes behind the couch.

Brenda could turn on the television to keep her company or put on some music with her phone which is still within arms reach but instead she does nothing. Sits in the living room which is glowing warmly from the dim lighting and lets Sharon sleep for as long as sleep will allow.


	8. eight

_Is this all, can I go now, is this all?_

**Is This All? - Jonatha Brooke**

*

Brenda knows that after a shooting that affects a department, no one is expected to arrive bright and early the next morning, but Sharon still shakes her awake around five. 

“You fell asleep with your makeup on,” Sharon says in lieu of apology. 

Brenda is curled up on the couch and stretching out hurts. One of her knees pops. The first few steps are treacherous while her blood flow returns. She uses the bathroom and washes her face. Ties back her hair - she can keep wearing these clothes to drive Sharon home. 

Sharon has changed back into her own clothes and left the pajamas folded neatly on the top of the washer. Brenda catches her rolling up her sleeves - sees the blood dried on the hem. 

“You… you should borrow something,” Brenda says. “Don’t wear that.” 

“It’s fine,” she says. “It’s a short drive.” 

They’re three quarters of the way to Sharon’s condo when she says, “Wait, wait, let’s think about this.”

“Huh?”

“My car is still at the office,” Sharon says. “We should’ve gone there, first. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, I’ll take you home and then take you to work when you’re ready.”

“Are you sure?” Sharon says, and she sounds a little manic. “I’ve asked too much of you already.”

“No, you haven’t,” Brenda says. “I’m happy to do it.”

Brenda glances over to see Sharon rubbing her forehead. A tension headache no doubt. Maybe new and forming, maybe a holdover from the night before. They did sleep awkwardly together on the sofa, neck at strange angles. They’re too old for that. At least, Brenda is so Sharon must be. 

Sharon’s condo is dark and a little musty. She pauses in the dark front hallway to push a button on the thermostat, so Sharon must think so too. She flips two light switches and some recessed lights come on and a light in the hallway where the bedrooms are. 

“I can make some coffee,” Brenda volunteers before Sharon has to figure out what to do with her. 

“That would be so great,” Sharon says. “I’m going to hop in the shower, I won’t be long.”

“Take all the time you need,” Brenda says. She’s in no rush and has nowhere she has to be. 

Sharon’s kitchen is easy to navigate. It’s organized and well-stocked and intuitive. The coffee maker sits on the counter and Brenda finds all the supplies and mugs in the cupboard right above it. At home she generally just dumps the coffee into the filter and hopes for the best, but she takes time to measure out the water and the beans, scooping them into the grinder with the little black, plastic scoop. 

The ginder is quiet, efficient. Like Sharon. 

When the coffee is brewing, Brenda waits for it perched on one of the stools at the kitchen counter. Sharon lives on the eleventh floor, so the view isn’t bad. It’s a little gray this morning, but that will burn off by mid morning. Brenda would never live in a tall building like this herself, but she appreciates the swaying tops of the palm trees, the buildings in the distance. The double paned windows that keep the view quiet and serene. 

The coffee maker beeps. She picks out two mugs, two matching cream ones with delicate handles and fills them up. There’s no creamer in the fridge and only a few packets of sugar in the cupboard, so Brenda doctors her own with just almond milk and leaves Sharon’s black.

She knocks on Sharon’s closed bedroom door lightly and when she receives no response, pushes it open gently. The door to the bathroom is still closed and she can hear the shower. She looks around for the best place to leave the mug - the nightstand or the little bureau. She picks the bureau because it’s by the closet and Sharon will have to see it there.

Then Brenda retreats to sip at her own bitter cup until Sharon is ready to go. 

And when Sharon comes out, dressed in a black pantsuit, she’s holding the mug. 

“Sorry,” Sharon says again.

Brenda just shakes her head. “Please don’t be.” 

They leave their mugs in the sink when it’s time to go. 

Sharon still seems tired, but she looks lovely enough, anyway. And Brenda doesn’t dictate her days; Brenda would do exactly the same thing if their roles were reversed. 

She drops her off in front of the PAB.

“Call me if you need anything,” Brenda says, but they both know she won’t. 

oooo

Brenda decides to visit Andy Flynn. She looks up the visiting hours on her phone and then showers, puts on clean clothes and fixes her hair. Just a little bit of makeup. It will be hard for the squad to spend any time with him this first day while they’re still finishing up the case. 

Andy’s not in his room when she arrives, but the nurse assures her that he’s just out for some tests and should be back in a few minutes. Brenda waits about fifteen minutes before the bed gets rolled back in. Andy looks a little groggy and his shoulder is still heavily bandaged but he smiles when he sees her.

“Hiya, Chief.” 

“Just Brenda now,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

“Well,” he says, waving his good hand in the air. “Like someone took a shot at me I guess.” 

“I guess they did,” Brenda says. “Glad you came through it.”

“Me too,” he says. “Getting too old for this shit, though.”

She laughs. “I hear you.” 

They make a little small talk, but it’s clear Andy is groggy and tired. 

“You don’t have to go, right?” Andy says as he drifts off.

“I can sit a spell,” Brenda promises. “Get some rest.” 

And she does stay because it’s fine to sit on her phone while he snores. She stays almost an hour before Tao shows up, holding two cups of coffee and looking tired and older than she remembers. 

“Chief!” he says. 

“Hi,” she says. “I was just keeping him company.” 

“The Captain is downstairs, parking,” he says. Brenda rarely drove when she was with the squad so it surprises her that it’s Sharon driving around Mike, but then maybe she’s just the most awake of the pair. 

“How’s the case?” she asks.

He shrugs one shoulder. “Sad, mostly.” 

“Yeah.”

Brenda has to wait now, for Sharon to arrive because it would be strange and rude to leave before, but she does give Mike the chair. She tucks her phone in her pocket and shoulders her purse so she’s the pictures of someone about to leave when Sharon finally stalks into the room. 

Sharon’s hair, long and shiny when Brenda saw her only a few hours ago, has been swept back with a plastic clip and her lipstick is wearing thin.

“Hi,” Sharon says. “What are you doing here?”

“Just keeping Flynn company,” Brenda says. “But you’re here now and he’s pretty drugged up, so I’m gonna skidaddle.”

“Oh,” Sharon says. “Sure.” 

She waves at Mike. “Bye, Lieutenant.” Turns to Sharon. “I’ll see you later?”

Sharon nods.

Brenda is halfway down the hall when Sharon comes out and says, “Brenda!” Comes hurrying toward after her. 

“What’s the matter?” Brenda asks. 

“No, nothing,” Sharon says. “I just… wanted to say thank you.” 

“Oh,” Brenda says. “For what?”

“For… last night, and taking me to work and coming today,” Sharon says. 

“You’re always welcome,” Brenda says. 

“Can I… stop by after work?” Sharon asks.

“Of course, but you must be exhausted,” Brenda says. 

“Okay, come to mine, then,” Sharon says. “If you have time.”

“All right,” Brenda says, smiling. “Just text me when you’re headed home, if you’d like.” 

“Good,” Sharon says. “I’ll see you later.” 

oooo

Brenda spends the day daydreaming about what could make Sharon want to see her again this evening, so fervently that she hustled down a hospital corridor after they’d already said their goodbyes. After spending both the morning and previous evening together. And the day before that, too. In a perfect world, what would Sharon have to say? That she wanted Brenda in the same way that Brenda wanted her?

And what was that, exactly? If Sharon confesses that she has feelings too, what happens next?

When Sharon texts, it’s nearly seven which doesn’t surprise Brenda in the slightest. Charlie is at work and she’s just been drifting around the house, eating handfuls of chocolate chips whenever she found herself by the kitchen. Brenda offers to pick up something for dinner and Sharon says no, they can cook.

She says they, like Brenda and Sharon together. 

Brenda hopes it means Brenda sits on that kitchen stool and watches Sharon cook. Still, she brings a bottle of wine. Maybe they can have that drink after all.

Sharon is home when Brenda arrives, already in leggings and an oversized button down. She still has her makeup on and there’s soft music playing from a speaker somewhere. She smiles when she opens the door. There’s a loud beep behind her.

“That’s the oven,” Sharon says.

“Hello to you, too,” says Brenda. 

“Come in, please,” Sharon says. She reaches for the wine bottle. “Is that for me?”

“I mean, you can have some, I guess,” Brenda says handing it over. Brenda sets her purse down on her favored stool and surveys the kitchen. “What’s all this?”

“Just throwing something together,” Sharon says. There’s vegetables on the counter, half a chicken on the cutting board, a loaf of french bread on a baking sheet. “Nothing serious.” 

It looks serious. Brenda realizes that Sharon had bought an entire whole chicken and was just in the midst of hacking it into bits. She explained it was cheaper than buying the pieces already cut, but it seemed like the effort made that moot. 

“We’re going to eat late, I’m sorry,” Sharon says as she finally shoves the chicken into the oven, covered with foil. 

“I’ve been snackin’ all day,” Brenda admits. “It’s fine.” 

Her wish comes true, however, because she perches herself on a stool and watches Sharon move comfortably around her kitchen.

“You sure you aren’t too tired for all of this?” Brenda asks.

“Yes,” Sharon says. “I had a catnap this afternoon in the car and we’ve all been drinking so much coffee that I feel kind of wired, actually.”

“You’ll crash,” Brenda says. “Probably when you least suspect it.”

“I know,” she says. She’s putting together an elaborate salad and is currently cutting up a pear into long, thin slices. Her had with the knife hesitates just for a moment but Brenda sees it clearly. “You’re just alone in your house all the time and I’m alone in mine, so I figured...” She shrugs and doesn’t complete the thought.

“I feel like I don’t ever see Charlie anymore,” Brenda admits. “I’m a little worried about her.”

“I think not being in school makes her anxious and bored,” Sharon says. “The second job helps her fill the time while she waits.”

“I know a little about that,” Brenda says self-deprecatingly. 

Sharon slides the pear slices into the salad bowl. 

“Have you been thinking about what you want to do next?” Sharon asks. 

Mostly, Brenda has been thinking about Sharon. Job prospects loom over her constantly, but she’s good at putting things off and so she’s been compartmentalizing that particular worry away.

“Yes,” Brenda says. “Sort of. I don’t know. I don’t think anyone will want me now. Not like this.” 

“I disagree,” Sharon says. 

“Unless you’re gonna hire me, I’m not sure your opinion matters all that much, nice as it is,” Brenda says. 

Sharon covers the salad with cling wrap and shoves it in the fridge and then pulls a wine opener out of the drawer. She slides Brenda’s bottle of red over and uncorks it gracefully. 

“About time,” Brenda says with a small smile. 

Sharon smirks back at her. 

After the wine is poured and in front of each of them, breathing before they take their first sip, Sharon says, “Brenda, I have an idea about what you should do next, but I don’t want to overstep the boundaries of our friendship by getting involved if you don’t want me to be involved.” 

Brenda feels her stomach go hard and flop over. She understands now that this is why she’s here, having dinner with Sharon this evening. So Sharon can gauge whether or not to help her pathetic friend get back into the workforce. Brenda wants to say no, that she doesn’t need Sharon’s pity or her whole chicken or her green salad with fruit in it. 

But the truth of the matter is, Brenda does need help. She can hear Dr. Barrett in her mind, reminding her for the sixth or seventh time that asking for help isn’t bad and receiving help doesn’t make her a bad person. And behind her therapists voice, she can hear Frtiz’s voice, screaming at her that she was manipulative, that she’d only married him for what the FBI could offer her never ending case load. That she was a selfish user who would never change. 

“Uh,” Brenda says. “I guess it depends.” 

Sharon tilts her head. “On me or on the job?”

“On the job,” Brenda says, rubbing her hands on her jeans. She feels hot, suddenly, sweaty in her palms and under her breasts. 

“I have a friend,” Sharon says. “No, well. A work acquaintance who does consulting work. Her main client is the UC system. UCLA but she will go to other UC campuses on occasion.” 

“Consulting,” Brenda says uneasily.

“Guest lecturing, conferences, sometimes law firms will hire her to testify as an expert witness in court,” Sharon says. “She told me the other day that she’s swamped all the time, never home, was thinking of hiring someone to help her.” Sharon stares at her, willing Brenda to make the obvious jump. Brenda is still on the edge of panicking for no reason, so all she can do is stare back at Sharon’s green eyes behind her thick lenses. 

“Uh huh,” Brenda says.

“So do you want me to give her your contact information?” Sharon asks.

“Me?” Brenda says. 

“Yes, you,” Sharon says with a laugh. “You were the only person who came to mind. You could work part time, at first, just try it out. You wouldn’t have to go all in right away.” 

Brenda feels like she lacks all the information she needs but finds herself nodding at Sharon. “Okay,” she says. And she guesses it’s the right answer because Sharon smiles.

“Great,” Sharon says. “Good.” 

Brenda excuses herself to use the restroom and locks the door behind her before gripping the edges of the counter with both hands and staring at herself in the mirror. She can still hear the roar of blood in her ears and when she sees the reflection she’s making, it feels like it could be anyone at all looking back at her. She can’t find anything that looks like herself. 

Only a stranger who blinks at the same time, watching her back.

No matter how much better she does, any improvements she makes seem to be temporary. Something goes wrong and she slides back down into this despair. It always has one hand around her ankle. She can’t get free. 

Of course Sharon doesn’t feel anything for her other than friendship and pity. Why would Sharon love someone so inherently unlovable? Fritz had been right all along, through all those fights they’d had again and again. Brenda is selfish and she uses people and here she is doing it again. 

She only comes out of the bathroom when Sharon knocks, asking “Are you okay?” through the closed door. 

When she opens it, smiling, she nods. “Sorry,” she says. “Sorry.”

She can’t explain where the time went so she doesn’t try. 

oooo

At her penultimate therapy session with Dr. Barrett (on the LAPD’s dime, anyway) she asks, “What do panic attacks feel like?”

She has thrown Dr. Barrett for a loop which is difficult to do and makes Brenda feel a ping of smugness.

“Do you feel that you’re having panic attacks?” Dr. Barrett asks. 

“Well I’m not sure,” Brenda says. “What do they feel like?”

“Different for different people,” Dr. Barrett says. “Most people feel their heart race. They feel trapped or anxious. Light-headed. Sometimes they have trouble breathing.” 

Brenda shakes her head. “That isn’t right. I mean, I’ve had those, before. In the past. But it’s not what’s happening now. I thought maybe… it could be a different kind?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you do feel when you have an episode,” Dr. Barrett suggests gently.

“I mean it’s not an _episode_ , let’s not be dramatic,” Brenda says defensively. “I just feel extra… extra nothin’.” 

“Extra nothing,” Dr. Barrett repeats when Brenda doesn’t go on.

“You ever look in the mirror and not recognize who you see?” Brenda says. “You know it’s you but if someone came up and said it was a stranger, you’d think, yeah, that could be?”

“What you’re describing sounds more like disassociation,” Dr. Barrett says. “You become detached, things don’t seem quite real. Maybe you lose time.”

Brenda nods. “That happens. Sometimes.”

“Disassociation is a way your brain can cope with too much of something. It’s a way of protecting itself from some sort of stressful situation. Sometimes with people who experience a trauma, it happens as a way to help cope.”

“I mean, that makes sense,” Brenda says.

“It’s not a great long term solution,” Dr. Barrett says. “We can’t just check out of a situation when it gets too difficult forever.”

“Killjoy,” Brenda says. 

Dr. Barrett gives her a sardonic smile. “I’ll print you out some literature on dissociative disorders and some therapeutic tips for when it happens. We can even practice coping techniques.” She pauses and then says, “What were you doing the last time it happened?”

They’ve been talking around Sharon for weeks now. Brenda keeps accidentally circling back around to the friendship, to the strange feels she’s been juggling now for… well for years. But she hasn’t come right out and told Dr. Barrett that she has an attraction to Sharon, not fully, though she thinks Dr. Barrett probably has her suspicions. 

Brenda just can’t see what that has to do with her husband’s death. None of it seems to matter and what is she going to gain from confessing her one-sided feelings other than pity?

“I was at dinner,” Brenda says. “I went to the restroom and I looked at myself in the mirror and everything seemed strange.” 

“Were you with Charlie?” Dr. Barrett asked.

“No,” Brenda says. 

Dr. Barrett waits until the silence between them grows intolerable.

“I was with Sharon,” Brenda says. “She wants me to… I mean she _offered_ to connect me with a possible job opportunity.”

Brenda phrases it this way so that Dr. Barrett will think the anxiety comes from re-entering the workforce and while that does make her anxious to think about, she doesn’t think that’s the cause of her bathroom spiral.

“But you weren’t expecting her to offer that?” Dr. Barrett says. “She brings you to your appointments. You’re friends now. She’s close to your niece. Why wouldn’t she offer assistance in this area?”

“She would,” Brenda says. “Of course she would.” 

Dr. Barrett sets her pencil and notebook aside and says, “We have one more session on the books scheduled, Brenda. I want to use that hour next session to talk about Sharon.”

Blood in her ears. She can hear it rushing already.

“I know that makes you uncomfortable,” Dr. Barrett says quickly. “I know you don’t want to but I think it’s an important piece of your recovery. I don’t want to ambush you, however. So I’m telling you now so you can prepare.” 

“I haven’t lied,” Brenda says quickly. “I ain’t been lyin’ to you.”

“I don’t think you have,” Dr. Barrett says. “And of course you don’t have to answer anything that makes you feel unsafe. But I have some questions for you about Sharon and I’d like to ask them and I hope you can continue to be honest with me, okay?”

All Brenda can do is nod, her face hot and her chest tight. She fumbles for the straps of her purse. 

“Stop and see Kathy on your way out, she’ll give you those printouts we discussed,” Dr. Barrett says. 

Brenda feels exposed and angry, sulks out into the exit area where the pass through window reveals that Kathy is not in her chair, but over by the printer while the old machine chugs. Through to the other side, she can see Sharon in the waiting room flipping through a magazine. Sharon almost always waited for her outside the exit door, perched on the little planter wall. 

“Here you go, hon,” Kathy says, handing Brenda a warm stack of paper. She takes it and shoves it into her bag. 

Sharon looks up, drops the magazine back on the end table and points to the exit. 

“Thanks, bye,” Brenda manages before going through her door. Sharon is there in the hallway.

“Ready?” she asks.

“Why were you inside?” Brenda demands, feeling jumpy and defensive. 

Sharon stares at her a beat and then says slowly, “Brenda it’s a hundred degrees out here.”

Brenda herself is in denim shorts and a t-shirt with a skateboarding skeleton that belongs to Charlie but is so, so soft. Sharon is in a sheath dress with no sweater or jacket and her hair is in a french twist, up off her neck and out of her face, in deference to the heatwave that had settled upon Los Angeles, here at the end of June. 

“How was your session?” Sharon asks. 

Brenda shrugs, her bag heavy on her shoulder. “I don’t even know if I like Dr. Barrett,” she says. “I might skip the last one.”

Sharon makes a face. Brenda can see it even with the sunglasses covering her eyes. Her mouth compresses, her smile lines deepen a bit. 

“One more isn’t gonna make much of a difference,” she presses. 

“So you think you’ll stop therapy all together once your LAPD sessions run out?” Sharon asks, her light tone forced.

“Yes,” Brenda says firmly.

“Because I could talk to-”

“Stop helpin’ me!” Brenda blurts. “You don’t have save me every time I fuck up!”

Sharon jumps a little but falls silent. Reaches into her handbag to unlock the car, which it does with a beep. 

Brenda immediately feels bad about the outburst, hot guilt crawling around her neck and shoulders. She just wants to be home in her bed, the fan whirring in the corner offering pleasant white noise while she naps. She wants to be alone in the house she bought impulsively which now drains at her savings. 

Sharon is quiet until they’re on the road. Her stony silence should be making Brenda feel even worse but she’s at capacity for feeling bad, so it doesn’t. Finally, Sharon says, “You know, I screw up sometimes, too.” 

Brenda snorts.

“I was under the impression that these sessions were helping you,” Sharon says. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like you had to go. I didn’t mean to crowd you.” 

Brenda feels more like she’s crowding herself. But she can’t admit that now, so she just nods in agreement and lets Sharon soak in her sulky silence for the rest of the drive home. 

oooo

Charlie wakes her up the next morning, sitting on the edge of her bed looking exhausted.

“What happened yesterday?”

“Huh?” Brenda asks. She has no right to feel so tired still - it wasn’t even ten when she put herself to bed and it’s pushing on ten again after a glance at her clock on the nightstand. But she feels tired deep down to the marrow. 

“What happened with Sharon?”

“What? Nothin’,” Brenda says. “She took me to therapy, s’all.”

“And then you were mean? Because you’re always mean after therapy?” Charlie accuses.

“I wasn’t… mean,” she says, rubbing her face. 

“Sharon called me and said that I could come over to her place whenever I wanted but that she probably wouldn’t be coming here anymore, so you did _something_ ,” Charlie says.

“Okay, yes, I’m a fuck up, you happy? I fucked up,” Brenda says. “I drove her away.”

“Brenda!” Charlie says with exasperation. It’s rare Charlie doesn’t put the honorific of aunt before her name so Brenda knows she’s screwed up yet again. “I’m sure we can-”

“Listen, you date her then if you want, I don’t care, I don’t need a friend right now,” Brenda says, rolling over and facing the wall. Maybe she can sink back into sleep if Charlie just leaves her alone.

“Date her?” Charlie says. “Why would I-” She pauses. “Oh.”

Brenda tenses, unsure what the realization in Charlie’s voice means. She didn’t mean to… say that, exactly. In that way. In that specific way. 

She tries to do some damage control.

“Friendships don’t always work,” she says mostly into her pillow. “We gave it a shot. Feel free to go see her if you want, no hard feelings.” 

“All right,” Charlie says, standing up. “Okay. We will talk about this later, I guess. When you’re feeling better.”

 _So never_ , Brenda thinks to herself. Because she knows now after nine therapy appointments that she is officially beyond all help.


	9. nine

_And what's the point in hiding?_   
_Everybody knows we got unfinished business_   
_And I'll regret it if I didn't say_   
_This isn't what it could be_

**Back to You - Selena Gomez**

*

Brenda does skip her last therapy appointment. It’s no loss to her - already paid for by the LAPD so she’s not eating the money. Her phone rings five minutes after she’s supposed to be there and she watches the unknown number go to her voicemail. 

She’s just going to delete it right away but she can hear the small voice anyway as it autoplays for a moment before she can tap the delete button.

“ _Hi Brenda, this is Kathy from Dr. Barrett’s office…_ ”

Sharon hadn’t shown up to take her to the appointment, anyhow. They haven’t spoken in the two weeks since the last one. Brenda knew that Sharon wouldn’t come, but there was a very small part of her that had hoped she’d pull up outside of the little house, knock on the door in the middle of her workday and say, “You ready?”

When Charlie gets home from her lunch shift, she says, “I’m going to quit Casey’s.”

She sits down at the kitchen table and looks tired. The skin under her eyes is dark and gray.

“Somethin’ bad happen?” Brenda asks.

“No,” Charlie says. “But Wood Ranch offered me more hours and I make more there so… I could make the same amount and work a day less.” She taps at the top of the table. “We could spend more time together.”

Brenda rests her head on her chin and looks Charlie over.

“I think we could both use it,” Charlie says.

“I think so, yes,” Brenda agrees. “We need a spa day.”

“I have been thinking about a haircut,” Charlie admits. “Some sort of change.” 

Brenda chuckles. “I always used to change my hair after I broke up with someone. Like that was gonna fix my broken heart.”

Across the formica table top, Charlie’s face crumples and she starts to cry.

oooo

It takes a half gallon of ice cream and a bottle of wine for Charlie to start feeling better, but as the evening progresses, Brenda only feels worse and worse. She’d been selfish and self-absorbed and stupid and blind. Charlie was living an entire life outside of this bungalow that Brenda didn’t know a think about because she can’t manage ever to look past the tip of her own nose. 

And what’s worse is she knows that Sharon probably _does_ know all about Charlie’s love life. That stings something fierce. 

Brenda had learned a little about Charlie’s heartbreak - a boy she works with who had seemed great and then stopped being great rather abruptly. Who was charming but drank too much, who made bad decisions like driving drunk and nearly getting Charlie killed on the 405. Who was great at apologies but couldn’t ever follow through on anything he promised. 

Brenda had expressed that she wished Charlie would tell her more, trust her with her secrets but Charlie had told her aunt that she hadn’t wanted to be a burden during a difficult time.

“My husband didn’t die, I just picked a loser,” Charlie had said. 

So she’s glad Charlie will be able to spend more time with her but Brenda still goes to bed feeling like gum on the bottom of someone’s shoe. She can’t sleep so around three am, after hours of tossing and turning, she gets up and drags her comforter off the bed and onto the couch.

When she turns on the television, it comes on to Charlie’s YouTube account - it’s the thing she watches the most. The first recommended video is some beautiful girl somewhere, probably living not far from where Brenda is now, putting on layer after layer of makeup. Brenda pushes play and lets the girl’s confidence and beauty soothe her. 

She doesn’t sleep, but she floats along until morning, anyway.

oooo

Charlie makes them both appointments at the same salon for the first day they spend together in a long time. Brenda can’t remember the last haircut she had - her hair is as long as it has ever been, maybe, since she was a little girl with two braids down her back. But the ends are in bad shape - she can break them off easily and her roots are a mixture of dirty blonde and gray. Until the appointment is secured, she hadn’t thought about her hair but now all she can see is how awful it looks.

Charlie decides to go blonde. 

They have a nice time together, though subdued. Brenda gets her roots done, gets about five inches of hair cut off and they give her a blow out. Charlie’s hair takes longer to lighten, so Brenda goes to Starbucks to get them coffee while Charlie’s appointment finishes up. It’s just down the street. 

She doesn’t notice them at first, the two in-uniform officers, sitting near the door opposite to the one where she came in. She waits in line, orders the coffees and is lingering over by the pickup bar when she finally clocks them and she only notices because they’re looking right at her. She can see them out of her periphery. 

The LAPD has over 9,000 sworn officers and she doesn’t know them all; seeing police doesn’t jar her, but they don’t usually stare her down.

Maybe her new hair is just that excellent. She tucks a piece behind her ear and doesn’t let them see that she’s noticed them. It’s a man and a woman. The man finally gets up and approaches her.

“Mrs. Howard?” he says.

And boy is _that_ jarring. It takes her a few beats to both realize he’s talking to her and to respond.

“Oh,” she says at last. “Oh, well. Not… yes, I suppose.” 

“My name is Officer Damaris Lopez,” he says. “I worked with the late Chief Howard.”

She forces a smile. Shakes his hand which is big and warm. 

“I just wanted to say how sorry we all were for that loss.” 

“Why thank you, Officer Lopez, thank you so much. That’s sweet of you to say,” she says. 

“If you ever need anything,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. “Please don’t hesitate to call.” He hands her a business card. 

His partner approaches. “I hope it’s not too forward, ma’am, but we all know that Chief Pope unfairly pushed you out of Major Crimes.”

“I - I can’t say much about all that,” she says, flustered.

The barista behind the bar yells, “Brenda!”

“There’s a lot of the LAPD that was on your side. Unhappy with a woman of power being sidelined like that.”

“That’s… that’s my coffee,” Brenda says helplessly. 

“Nice to see you again, ma’am,” Officer Lopez says. The female officer waves. 

She carries the coffee back to the salon in a bit of a daze. Her first instinct is to call Sharon and discuss the bizarre encounter, but of course she can’t do that. Charlie had said that Brenda needs to call and apologize, but she’s just not ready to do that yet, so Sharon is gonna have to stay out of reach.

Charlie is still in the chair when Brenda comes back, but she’s getting her own blow out so Brenda just hands her the coffee and plops into the empty chair next to her. Charlie’s hair is beautiful, light with artfully done high and low lights. She’s so tan that it really stands out. 

Brenda tries to pay but for Charlie and there’s a stalemate followed by a negotiation until finally they just pay for their own services which is just as well as it’s nearly two hundred dollars each. 

Brenda tries to tell Charlie about the experience she’d just had at the Starbucks, but she finds she can’t. It’s too strange, would take too much explanation. She doesn’t know where to start, it’ll trigger another lecture about Sharon. Any reason, she doesn’t have to pick. 

The irony isn’t lost on her. She can’t talk to Sharon, she can’t tell Charlie, and she quit therapy in a huff so she can’t tell Dr. Barrett either.

She just has to carry around being called Mrs. Howard around with her for awhile. Roll it round inside and see if it’ll cut her up or come out a pearl. 

oooo

Her phone rings on Monday morning just after nine. She’s still in bed - had gotten up to pee but flopped back down again and is dozing between bouts of looking at her phone. Charlie is still asleep and will be until at least 11:00. She lives on restaurant time. Brenda has been thinking about getting up but hasn’t made any firm commitments.

The number that comes in is unknown and she silences it and sends it to voicemail straight away.

She’s staring down a sink full of dishes while the coffee pot slowly fills when she remembers to check for a voicemail. There is one and so she listens to it, happy to have something to put off dishes for. 

“ _Hi Brenda, my name is Mallory Anderson, and I’m calling because you were referred to me by Sharon Raydor as a potential consultant for my firm. I’d love to talk to you about it if you’re still interested. I’m really looking for another woman to help with my caseload and finding someone with your experience isn’t easy! Please give me a call back at this number, or you can text if that’s easier and we can set up an appointment. Can’t wait to talk to you. Thanks, bye._ ”

Brenda thinks Mallory Anderson must be a little younger than Brenda because it would never occur to Brenda to offer to text even if a cell phone was her only means of communication. She and Fritz had a landline even still when he died, but when she’d moved here, she’d never bothered to install one. 

Brenda is also surprised to get the call - she’d thought after her outburst with Sharon, Sharon might have declined the offer all together. But while Sharon is many things, she’s not generally petty. 

Brenda doesn’t return the call, but she decides she will text the woman. Not right away because then it would seem like she’s screening calls. 

She drinks her coffee out in the backyard. It’s going to be another scorching hot day, but this early in the day it isn’t bad and the yard is still in the shade. When she gets out there, settled, she can see that Charlie’s window is open. 

Maybe they could talk through the screen, whisper secrets like confession. Maybe it’d be easier to share if they weren’t face to face. But of course, it’s quiet from inside Charlie’s room because Charlie is asleep and Brenda won’t wake her. She drinks her coffee down to the bottom of the mug, now cool, and then puts herself back inside the house. 

She texts the woman before she loses her nerve. 

_Hi Mallory, this is Brenda. I’d love to meet with you. Just let me know when & where._

It takes Mallory over an hour to respond and Charlie’s awake by then. She looks tired, wrung out, but beautiful in that way only a woman in her 20s can - youth’s dewiness overriding whatever stress she’s putting her body through. The blonde hair suits her and she looks as much a California girl as anything else.

“You like it here, Charlie?” Brenda asks. 

“Huh?” she asks. She’s curled around a mug of coffee, staring at her phone at the kitchen table while Brenda cooks a pot of oatmeal on the stove. Brenda has been on an oatmeal kick because she can put a lot of sugar into it without seeming suspicious. 

“California,” Brenda says.

“Uh,” Charlie thinks for a moment. “Yeah. Parts of it.”

“You ever think about goin’ home?”

Charlie shrugs. “No.”

Brenda brightens at this, pleased. “Good.”

“It would feel like going backwards. I know there’s not a lot for me back there right now. And the waiting around to go back to school is kind of boring, but I like living with you and I don’t mind the restaurant and the weather is awesome.” 

“It is awesome,” Brenda says, peering out of the kitchen window to see blue skies and sunshine. It’s hot now, in the late morning. They’re pushing on July pretty hard. “What do you want to do for the holiday? You got plans?”

This strikes something because Charlie looks immediately guilty and squirmy. Brenda can wait that out easily. She’s got years of sitting in an interrogation room behind her, waiting for someone’s confession to spill out. 

“Rusty invited me to watch fireworks with him,” Charlie says.

Brenda’s phone on the counter by the refrigerator chimes loudly with a text notification. 

“Rusty and Sharon,” Brenda says. 

“Yes,” Charlie admits. “And you are, of course, 100% invited-”

Brenda snorts and goes to get her phone. 

“You _are_ , Sharon said so specifically,” Charlie says.

“She don’t wanna see me,” Brenda says. “It’s fine, you should go.”

“Like,” Charlie says helplessly. “This is all so stupid.” 

Brenda ignores that, opens the text.

_Nice to hear from you! How about 6/30 at the Starbucks on Westwood. Near UCLA? Let me know if that works. 1:00 pm is best for me._

Brenda certainly doesn’t have any pressing engagements. 

_Great, see you there._ The response seems to be enough because Mallory doesn’t say more. 

“Listen,” Charlie says when Brenda puts down her phone. “This was always going to be a hard year. For you, for me, for Sharon. But having a spat doesn’t mean you just give up on the relationship all together.”

“We had barely made it to friends,” Brenda says.

“That’s not true,” Charlie says. “Come on, Aunt Brenda, come with me. You can see the Hollywood Bowl fireworks from the condo, they’re supposed to be great. We don’t even have to stay long.”

“I dunno, maybe, maybe,” Brenda says. She means no, of course, she means she’ll figure out a reason to weasel out of it later when the mounting pressure forces her to be creative. But there’s a big part of her that does want to see Sharon and misses the thing they’d had going. She misses Sharon’s easy, soft voice, her calm manner. But she does not miss feeling like a burden that Sharon needs to constantly mend. 

And it’s that feeling of being pathetic that keeps Brenda from reaching out or apologizing or leaving her house much. When she leaves, people call her Mrs. Howard. It just isn’t safe out there.

“Who was texting you?” Charlie asks. She’s had to salvage Brenda’s oatmeal on the stove and is pouring the mush into bowls for the two of them. 

“Some lady who maybe needs help with her consulting firm,” Brenda says.

“Wait, like a job?” Charlie asks.

“Maybe,” Brenda says.

“Consulting for what?” 

“Uh,” Brenda says reaching for the sugar dish. It’s getting low - she’s been eating a lot of oatmeal. Still, she puts a liberal spoonful on the top, and then reaches for the brown sugar. “Law enforcement stuff. Expert witness work, maybe something about classes at a local university.” Brenda shrugs. “I’m not sure exactly.” A lump of brown sugar goes on and starts to dissolve. 

“That sounds awesome,” Charlie says. “That sounds perfect for you.” 

“It’d be nice to do somethin’ part time for awhile, until I figure out… you know, my life.” She opens the refrigerator and pulls out a mostly empty bottle of maple syrup and adds a layer to her oatmeal.

“At some point the oatmeal becomes a pretense,” Charlie says.

“Oh, hush,” Brenda says. She stirs up all her add-ins and then takes a bite. It’s so sweet her teeth seem to buzz with it. Perfect.

“Where’d you find this lady?” Charlie asks. She’s put a handful of dried cranberries into her oatmeal and that is all. 

“Oh, you know. The internet,” Brenda lies. 

oooo

There was a time that Brenda wouldn’t have gone on a job interview in anything other than a blue or black suit, maybe a gray one if pressed, but having gotten rid of a great deal of her professional wardrobe in the wake of her husband’s murder, her options are limited. She settles on a patterned wrap dress for two reasons - it will work with the heat wave they’re experiencing and it fits her. The dress has cap sleeves and is an abstract pink and black pattern and the shape is forgiving of middle aged spread.

That’s what she’s calling her terrible diet, now. Just treating it as if it is inevitable. 

She puts on makeup, washes her hair, programs the address of the Starbucks into the GPS. She even leaves early, afraid of being late, and is the first to arrive. She texts Mallory that she’s arrived, buys herself a venti mocha with extra whipped cream and sits at a small round table near the window that is scuffed up and covered with crumbs. She waits nearly fifteen minutes before someone approaches.

“Brenda?”

Mallory is a little younger, as Brenda expected, but not much. Brenda pegs her as early 40s. She’s got a gold band on her wedding finger, a smart dark bob and the bluest eyes Brenda has ever seen. They are easily her most striking feature. She’s attractive, not beautiful, tall, broad shouldered and not especially feminine in her charcoal suit. But her expression is friendly.

“That’s me,” Brenda says, halfway standing to shake her hand. Mallory sets her purse down in the empty chair and immediately sheds her suit jacket, exposing her bare arms to the cool air of the coffee shop. 

“It’s over a hundred out there,” Mallory says. “I’m going to go order something, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, go right ahead,” Brenda says.

When Mallory is at the bar, she starts to panic a little. Suddenly she realizes that she has, perhaps, underprepared. She hasn’t brought even a résumé - hasn’t even looked at her résumé since taking the job with the D.A.’s office years ago. She has no idea what kind of questions Mallory will ask her, has no references to provide, has no answers that are going to be satisfactory, she’s certain.

And when Mallory comes back, an iced drink in hand, Brenda feels good and stressed.

“Okay,” Mallory says. “First of all, thank you so, so much for meeting me today.”

“I… I’m not sure what you’re expectin’, exactly,” Brenda confesses.

“I have been a one-woman operation for going on six years now,” Mallory says. “I like making my own schedule, I like deciding how much I am going to work.”

“Who wouldn’t like that,” Brenda says.

“Lately, though, I’ve been getting so much work that, honestly, I can’t keep up and I have regular customers I don’t want to turn down, but new projects that hold a lot of interest for me, so I just… need another set of hands on deck.”

Brenda nods. 

“Anyway,” Mallory says. “Sharon Raydor couldn’t recommend you highly enough, she really gushed and she’s a hard nut to crack, so here we are.”

“Here we are,” Brenda repeats with a forced smile. She feels a hot flash of guilt for not living up to the person that Sharon expected her to be. 

“So, let me tell you a little bit about my ideas on how to move forward,” Mallory says. “I have a number of regular appointments that I was hoping to farm out. Classes at UCLA, USC, and Loyola Marymount, for instance, who want an expert to come and speak to their students on a semi-regular basis. I think it’s great and important but I don’t always have to be the one to do it. Expert witness jobs - from what Sharon told me, you’re probably more qualified to do that than me anyway and with the unpredictability of court cases, those can really throw of my schedule at short notice.”

It occurs to Brenda, now and only now, that this is not a job interview. That Sharon’s word is enough for Mallory Anderson to fold Brenda in nearly sight unseen. 

“That all sounds, sounds fine,” Brenda says. “I’ve been on a sabbatical of sorts for the last nine months or so which isn’t really that long, but feels like I’m completely out of the loop.”

“I do know about what happened to your late husband,” Mallory says. “And I’d like to offer my condolences.”

“Thank you,” Brenda says. “I do feel ready to get back out and do somethin’, though.” 

“Let’s try it, then,” Mallory says. “Fall semesters start in August, there’s always criminology classes that what forensics experts to come chat with their students. When those jobs start coming in, I will divert them to you.” 

Brenda finds herself nodding. 

“I’ve drawn up some numbers here,” Mallory says, pulling a folder out of her bag and sliding Brenda a piece of paper. “You’ll see the figures there, the average going rate for the profession here, and then the adjustment made for my fee.” 

Three hundred dollars an hour for classroom visits, four hundred and fifty dollars an hour for expert witness cases if she has to attend the trial, four hundred if the lawyers just want to consult with her. It seems more than fair, honestly. 

“Sure,” Brenda says. “This seems fair enough.” 

“I’m happy to start you slow, let you… well, if we go on for awhile and you decide you want more work, you can just let me know.” Mallory cocks her head. “Do you want time to think about it?”

Brenda sits up straighter. “No, no, I’m in.” 

Mallory grins. “Okay, great! When the requests start coming in next month for classroom visits, I’ll let you know! I hate to run, but I have another appointment. It was so nice meeting you.” 

Brenda finds herself alone in the coffee shop. In the past, getting jobs had been an extremely competitive set of jumping through hoops. Even the ones she’d been recruited for had required background checks and psychiatric evaluations. This is the first time someone has just… handed her work with no strings attached. 

But who is she to look a gift horse in the mouth? So she takes her coffee and goes on home.

oooo

It’s stupid, this fight with Sharon. Brenda knows it. It’s not even a fight, really. It’s Brenda being hard to like, something that has plagued her all her life. Sharon didn’t exactly do anything wrong besides being so pretty that it made Brenda jumpy. She’d been trying to be nice. Brenda can see that, she can. 

Charlie keeps pestering her to come with her to Sharon’s to watch the fireworks, but Brenda doesn’t feel like she can do that without clearing the air first. And maybe doing the number one thing she hates most in the world - _apologizing_.

The holiday falls on a Tuesday, but it’s Sunday morning when Brenda wakes up full of determination. Charlie is asleep and will be for hours now, but Brenda can’t sleep anymore. So she puts on black yoga pants and her purple hoodie that is starting to fray at the edge of the sleeves and a pair of flip-flops. She drives the SUV over to Sharon’s and marches up to that imposing building and jams her finger into Sharon’s buzzer before she loses her nerve.

Actually, she still has time to lose it because in the four seconds that the open line rings, she considers bolting back to her car where it’s parked in the 30 minute guest parking. 

But then Sharon’s voice says, “ _Hello?_ ”

Brenda says, “It’s Brenda,” in a voice that comes out much smaller sounding than intended. 

“ _Oh_ ,” Sharon says with a note of real surprise. But then the door makes the noise of unlocking and Brenda pulls it open. The intercom goes dead. Brenda has to ride the elevator up eleven floors and then turns the wrong way when she gets out of it, has to turn around and back track. She knocks on Sharon’s door, though, because it’s too late to run now. 

Sharon opens it and Brenda is struck once more by just how pretty she is. She has on a dress, jewelry, makeup and her hair has been curled. She’s all done up at 9:30 in the morning.

“Hi,” Sharon says. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s fair,” Brenda says. “Fair. I, uh… I just came to say that… you know, that I’m-” She clears her throat. “I am sorry for being so… awful. To you. You didn’t deserve that.”

“You’re sorry?” Sharon repeats.

“I am,” Brenda says.

“Thank you,” Sharon says. “I accept your apology.” 

“You do?” Brenda says.

“Yes,” Sharon says. “Do you want to come in?”

This is further along than Brenda thought she would get, so she accepts in the invitation but not gracefully, because she says, “You look like you’re going somewhere.”

“Yes, it’s Sunday, but I have a couple minutes,” Sharon says. “Coffee? I still have some in the carafe.”

Brenda nods and says, “Sunday?”

“Church,” Sharon says. 

Brenda leans against the counter while Sharon preps her cup - still to her taste. 

“Thank you,” Brenda says.

“Are you planning on coming for fireworks? I made sure Charlie knew you were invited.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Brenda says. “I don’t want to be… inconvenient.” 

Sharon arches one brown primly. “You wouldn’t be.” 

Brenda sips her coffee. She wants to tell Sharon about Mallory, about the job she apparently now has, not just apologize for the past but to thank her for the future. But she can’t seem to find the words. 

“Do you want to come with me?” Sharon says.

“Huh?” Brenda says. Had she missed something while she was thinking about herself?

“To church,” Sharon says. “Do you want to come along?”

Brenda hasn’t set foot in a church to attend the service since she was still in school. Other than working cases, that is. She has no interest in organized religion. She’d grown up a whole mess of things - baptist, lutheran, methodist, presbyterian. Her father being in the army had moved them around a lot and her mother chose a congregation based not on the people or beliefs, but the most beautiful building. 

Strange, then, they’d never landed in a catholic cathedral, but there were some lines that just weren’t crossed, and the catholic-protestant divide was one of them.

So no, Brenda has no real interest in church, but sitting next to Sharon for an hour is a horse of another color.

“Yes,” she says, surprising them both. “That sounds nice.”


End file.
